‘Knock at the Cabin’ Shows Dave Bautista Is Best When Playing a Villain

While the horror film promises the end of the world as we know it, it’s in Bautista’s enormous hands that the apocalypse becomes truly unsettling.

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Knock at the Cabin.

There is something deceptively brilliant about a good Dave Bautista performance. The wrestler-turned-actor was initially most known for his role as Drax in the endless machine of Marvel movies, but he has thankfully since said he is going to leave all this behind. This has ensured, even early in his career, that he has become so much more than one single role. Whether it was when he played a smaller part in the science fiction films Dune and Blade Runner: 2049 or the apocalyptic series See, he has continued to prove that he has acting chops to spare. While there are some modern wrestlers, who shall remain unnamed here, that have taken a path of interchangeable blockbusters all built around advancing their brand and little else, Bautista has shown a willingness to take on more challenging material. He has not only risen to the occasion but has thrived within it. This has now reached its peak in his latest film, M. Night Shyamalan’s sinister adaptation Knock at the Cabin, which sees Bautista and the infamous director bringing vibrant life to a story all centered around impending death.

Without going into too much detail and spoiling the journey the film takes us on, so much of it relies on his performance to have the impact it does. Bautista steps into what is essentially a leading role in Leonard, a looming figure who we are first introduced to in the opening scene of the film when he emerges from the woods and begins speaking to the young Wen (Kristen Cui) while she is away from her two vacationing dads catching grasshoppers. The moment is riveting as it juxtaposes Bautista’s already imposing presence with a more quiet sensibility as he begins to explain why it is that his character is here. Leonard, as we will come to learn, is a man who believes that he has been chosen to prevent the end of the world. We hear the passion in every facet of his voice as he combines an almost relaxing gentleness with a simmering fervor that can become frightening without warning. In the conversation he has with Wen, we feel the weight that he is carrying and already are set on edge as we fear what is behind it. This is only the beginning as he and his fellow believers soon break into the cabin.

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Bautista’s Leonard Is the Villain of the Story

You see, Leonard is very much the villain of this story. No matter how much he believes that he is doing the right thing here, the events he sets in motion are still premised on cruelty and violence. No matter how much he believes the ends justify the means, there is no escaping the trauma he inflicts with his actions. Bautista captures this with a real sense of care, making the character feel abundantly lived in and painfully real as he wreaks havoc on the initially peaceful life of this family. The way he carries himself kicks it up that extra notch as his calmness keeps us on our toes. Had he been completely unhinged from the start, it would have been easier to identify him as a threat. Many villain performances can feel predictable as you look at someone and clearly see that they are someone you wouldn’t want to cross. Bautista’s performance complicates this, building Leonard from the ground up and establishing how he is an almost ordinary man underneath all of what is happening here.

Every Part Of Bautista’s Performance Is Enthralling

Many other actors could have merely relied on the intimidating nature of their stature. Refreshingly, that is not the case here, as the true terror comes from the little details Bautista brings to the character. The desperation that creeps into his voice would be heartbreaking if it wasn’t also the marker that he might be about to do something violent to the other characters. In the crushing close-ups Shyamalan gives us of him as he surveys the confined cabin, we can feel how there is anguish that informs every single thing that he is attempting to do.

We come to understand how Leonard fully believes in his mission, which is a chilling prospect considering the cost associated with it. Even though Bautista is one of the most recognizable people in the world, there is never a moment where he doesn’t disappear into the deadly nuances of the character. The more you come to sit with him, the more you both understand and are unsettled by him. It is the type of acting that eschews going for the louder and, frankly, easier scares to dig into something that burrows under your skin in a deeper sense.

In particular, there are a couple of monologues that Bautista gives towards the end that all become so disquieting in how he delivers them. As he savors each and every syllable, you almost find yourself unable to look away for fear that you could miss an important detail which would reveal what it is that his character is going to do next. For all of the ways that Shyamalan can get criticized for stilted dialogue, it manages to feel completely natural even as everything that is coming out of Leonard’s mouth in these moments remains unnatural.

There is a possibility that it is all madness, but there is also a creeping sense that he is beginning to sway all the characters even as he has made their lives a living hell. None of this would be possible without Bautista walking that fine line between devotion and fanaticism. As the story continues to spiral and the bodies pile up, it is his presence that grounds us in a situation that we would much rather escape. Even down to the final moment where we no longer see his face and merely hear him, he has us completely in his grasp. Though some may still forever see him as being the strange being with the goofy jokes eating chips in the corner, it will be his work in films like Knock at the Cabin that truly shows what he is made of.

Knock at the Cabin comes to theaters on February 3.