How Knock At The Cabin Leaves Out The REAL Horrific Ending

How Knock at the Cabin Leaves Out the REAL Horrific Ending

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re discussing how “Knock at the Cabin” leaves out the REAL horrific ending.

For this video, we’ll be looking at how M. Night Shyamalan’s 2023 film adaptation of Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 novel, “The Cabin at the End of the World,” deviates from its source material. For book readers and moviegoers alike, this essay is twisted with spoilers.

Are you glad or frustrated that “Knock at the Cabin” changed the ending? Let us know in the comments.

The film builds to a soul-crushing climax where Eric and Andrew must make an impossible choice: kill a family member to stop the apocalypse or let the world end. With daughter Wen not being an option, Eric encourages Andrew to pull the trigger. Although skeptical, Andrew reluctantly shoots the man he loves and the darkness begins to clear. As Andrew and Wen make it to a diner, they learn that the plagues have stopped. Searching the car that the four horsemen arrived in, Andrew finds that they were telling the truth about their professions and lives. However, it’s never clarified if Redmond was the one who attacked Andrew at the bar years ago. Is it just us, or did that guy sound like Woody Harrelson?

Turning on the car radio, Andrew and Wen hear “Boogie Shoes,” the same song that the family was singing along to on their way to the cabin. Although Andrew doesn’t want to listen at first, Wen encourages him to play the song as they drive off. The funky tune seems to indicate that the father and daughter will move on from this tragic loss without ever forgetting Eric. The song’s lyrics, “I want to do it till the sun comes up,” are usually interpreted in a suggestive way. Here, though, the sun coming up takes on a more literal sense as the darkness disperses and the family of two starts a new chapter. Although bittersweet, Shyamalan’s ending is far more uplifting than the book’s.

For its first half, “Knock at the Cabin” stays mostly faithful to the novel with four intruders arriving at the cabin, telling the family that one must die. The film begins to deviate when Andrew makes a break for his gun after Adriane is sacrificed. He shoots Sabrina before Leonard takes his own life, leaving Andrew and Eric to make the choice. In the book, Adriane is about to be sacrificed when Andrew goes for the gun. Adriane dies instead of Sabrina during the chaos, but she isn’t the only one. Wen gets caught in the crossfire, resulting in easily the book’s saddest moment. Adding to the tragedy, Leonard says that since Wen’s death was an accident, either Andrew or Eric must still be willingly sacrificed.

This is more than Sabrina can bear, driving her to kill Leonard, who agreed to be tied up after what happened to Wen. Sabrina gives Andrew and Eric the keys to Redmond’s car, but she can’t live with what she’s done. With only two left, Eric considers following Sabrina’s actions. Even with planes falling from the sky, Andrew still has a hard time believing that the world is ending. If it is, however, Andrew argues that Wen’s death should be enough to satisfy the powers that be. Andrew and Eric also decide that they don’t want to live without one another. Heading to Redmond’s car, they accept whatever lies on the horizon. We don’t learn the world’s fate or if the four horsemen were right.

Where the book leaves us on an ambiguous note, the film clarifies that the apocalypse was almost certainly real and Eric’s death made a difference. Either that or this was all just a series of inexplicable coincidences, which actually sounds more far-fetched than the world ending. M. Night Shyamalan movies are known for their wicked twists. “Knock at the Cabin” has one of his more straightforward endings with nothing as unexpected as Malcolm being a ghost or Mr. Glass being the villain. (Hopefully we didn’t spoil those films for you too!) For those who read “The Cabin at the End of the World,” though, the twist is how the film’s conclusion goes in an entirely different direction.

Although the source material’s setup was right up Shyamalan’s alley, he knew up front that he wanted to tweak the ending, if only to leave his own signature. In an interview with Digital Spy, Shyamalan explained that he felt the book and his movie should exist as separate entities, hence why they don’t share the same title. In many cases, the author can have reservations when a filmmaker takes their work in another direction. Just look at Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Shining.” Shyamalan says that Tremblay approved of this change, however.

Shyamalan called Tremblay to tell him that he wanted to alter the ending for his film adaptation. According to Shyamalan, Tremblay told him that he originally considered ending his book the same way that Shyamalan wraps up his movie, or at least in a similar fashion. Tremblay ultimately went with the more horrific ending, but Shyamalan took comfort in knowing that they both had the same idea. In that sense, you could argue that Shyamalan’s “Knock at the Cabin” is the alternate version of “The Cabin at the End of the World” that fans never got to read. Outside of making the movie stand on its own, Shyamalan said that he couldn’t go down that path.

Considering that Shyamalan has three daughters, we can imagine why he wouldn’t want to depict Wen’s death. Even if Shyamalan had been willing to portray the horrific ending, we’re not sure mainstream audiences would’ve been able to handle it. While the book was praised for its ending, seeing these events on screen is another experience. When Stephen King’s “The Mist” was adapted into a 2007 film, it received a “C” CinemaScore. That low grade can likely be attributed to the film’s infamous ending, which shares parallels with Wen’s fate in Tremblay’s book. While some find “The Mist” poetically tragic, others hated that it ended on such a bummer. “Knock at the Cabin” might’ve been met with the same reception had it kept the book’s ending.

It’s also worth noting that “The Cabin at the End of the World” hit shelves in 2018. While the book’s ending is horrific no matter when you read it, many might’ve argued that it went too far if it came out in 2023. In the past couple of years, we’ve endured a global pandemic, the tragedy at Uvalde, Texas (among other shootings), and a haunting rise in Anti-Asian hate crimes. Given the current climate, having Wen meet the same fate that she endures in the book probably would’ve alienated audiences. It still would’ve opened the door for some challenging conversations, but the less horrific ending isn’t unwelcome given where we are as a society.

Although Shyamalan’s ending isn’t as provocative, it doesn’t betray the book either. There’s still a sacrifice and the characters have to live with the consequences. We wouldn’t call it a horrific ending, but we wouldn’t call it a happy one either. What do you think? Do you prefer the book’s ending, the movie’s ending, or do you think that both work in their own way? Also, did you stay for the after-credits where another mysterious knock can be heard? In any case, we can all agree on one thing: at least the twist wasn’t that the cabin was on the moon this whole time!