KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023) Not-really-horror horror from the increasingly unreliable M. Night Shyamalan, which promises spectacular, apocalyptic destruction but, sadly, never delivers the goods. While on a woodsy vacation, a small family is taken hostage by a quartet of armed people who all claim to share the same vision of the end of the world, which only a sacrifice can stop. Guess who has to make the sacrifice? Plodding and uninvolving, Knock at the Cabin relies so heavily on its “What If?” scenario that it forgets to have any fun with the material. Instead of sympathetic, well-written characters trapped in a doomsday plot (as with Shyamalan’s Signs), the characters in Knock feel like manufactured caricatures written for the purpose of creating inauthentic drama, without the slightest possibility of a genuine outcome. D
THE NIGHT FLIER (1997) A surprisingly good adaptation of the Stephen King short story, in which ruthless tabloid journalist, Richard Dees (Miguel Ferrer), pursues vampiric serial killer Dwight Renfield (get it?), who uses a private plane to fly into remote towns and massacres anyone nearby. The rather oddball scenario could have been made to be superbly corny and predictable, but luckily director/writer Mark Pavia treats the material with the highest respect, adding an eye for creepy, grisly detail that makes the story move at a good pace. A sense of humor and some effective set pieces – a lengthy hallucination, in which Dees is trapped in a nightmare of blood-spattered vampires is terrific stuff – help to create a good, if imperfect, flick. The KNB make-up FX are excellent. B