Movie Review

Movie Review: Knock at the Cabin

/ Peter Martuneac / 4 Comments

A family of three, vacationing in a private cabin in the woods, are met by four strangers who tell them that the fate of the world is in their hands, but it will require the ultimate sacrifice from one of them…

M. Knight Shyamalan is back with another twisted tale for us, and I think this may be his best one yet. The premise is as simple as it gets, and the entire movie takes place in this one location with these seven main characters. I’d love to talk about the plot more but with a movie like this, it would be very hard without giving away some spoilers. This is a film to be watched without any foreknowledge.

What I will talk about is the acting, which was tremendous. Dave Bautista is the big star for this film, and despite his subdued demeanor he shines brightest. Bautista was one of my favorite wrestlers back in the day when I watched WWF/WWE wrestling, and I’m happy that he’s finding success outside the ring.

I’m also glad that Bautista has chosen to reinvent his image as an actor. In years past, he was always cast as the big, dumb muscle, whether as a James Bond villain or Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel universe. It’s nice to see him in more subtle and nuanced roles where he can showcase his true abilities as an actor instead of just hitting things and yelling.

The movie itself is very tense throughout, almost from the very first frame. It’s not necessarily a scary movie, and any violence typically takes place off-camera, but it’s extremely unsettling. There’s a lot of debate between the family and the strangers, with the former trying to convince the latter that they’re having a shared delusion or are zealots being led by a deceiver. In their turn, the strangers plead with the family to believe their incredible claims of God’s impending judgment and destruction of humanity.

I highly recommend this one to fans of horror and suspense films, and even to those of you who may not prefer such movies. It’s available to stream on Peacock, which is how I was able to watch it. It’s also based on the book Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, if you’d prefer to read that.

Movie Review: ‘M3GAN’

/ Peter Martuneac / 3 Comments

One thing you may not know about me: I’m a bit of a horror movie connoisseur. I’ve enjoyed them my entire adult life and have watched many a terrible, laughable one just to find one diamond in the rough.

So when M3GAN became available on Peacock, I had to give it a try.

M3GAN is about a girl whose parents are killed in a car accident, so she’s sent to live with her aunt, someone who is absolutely not ready to be a mother. She’s something of a genius inventor and has just created a life-sized, autonomous doll that is designed to be a child’s best friend. Before putting the doll, M3GAN, out to market, she decides to do a beta test on it with her niece.

You can probably guess how the movie progresses: M3GAN, given the ability to ‘learn’, learns too much and decides she’s in charge and kills quite a few people before the end.

I did wonder why the ‘genius inventor’ thought it necessary to give a child’s toy the strength of at least one power lifter, or why a simple ‘do no harm’ command wasn’t included in the doll’s code. Seems like a pretty glaring flaw in the design to me, but I guess they needed it to make the movie go.

At times, it felt like watching a 21st century Chucky movie, only it was slightly less campy and better acted. The acting in M3GAN is actually really well done and probably what made the film bearable. The was swearing, of course, and violence but none that was over the top. You see a guy get stabbed, a boy get his ear pulled off (with some pretty bad CGI), but nothing too awful.

I ended up enjoying it, but folks who don’t regularly endure some of the worst of its genre may not have the same appreciation. If you already have a Peacock streaming subscription, I’d say it’s worth a view!