Don't worry about M. Night Shyamalan

He's doing just fine.

Knock at the Cabin (Universal)

Hey, did you hear about the new M. Night Shyamalan movie? Of course you did—undoubtedly you’ve encountered someone online treating it as a grievous insult. For someone Newsweek once breathlessly described as “the next Spielberg,” Shyamalan has a passionate anti-fanbase that reacts to everything he puts out with the sort of outsized anger unique to people who don’t actually have real problems. Yet, they’ll still watch it, playing an eternal game of “let me see what happens if I eat this food I’m allergic to” with themselves, then complaining when they get hives again.

I’ve seen Knock at the Cabin, and I liked it pretty well. While I wouldn’t necessarily put Shyamalan high on my list of favorite filmmakers, his movies are almost always tightly paced and capably directed. He’s both unpretentious, and uncynical, sometimes to the point of corniness, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m more fascinated by the people who react to the announcement of every new Shyamalan film with “ugh, this fucking guy again” dismay. Why wouldn’t movie fans like him? He’s a non-white filmmaker who broke into the entertainment industry without any connections. Most of his ideas are original, and he’s yet to give in to the siren’s call of directing a Marvel property. He has a squeaky-clean reputation both on and off-set, and his actors have nothing but praise for working with him. For all appearances, he seems like a genial fellow who just really enjoys making movies.

Dig a little bit, and you’ll find that most Shyamalan haters have convinced themselves that he never recovered from the release of (the undeniably terrible) The Last Airbender, and that the only way he can get new movies made is through misguided charity. It’s a scam he’s running, you see, on both producers and the unsuspecting public. “Who keeps letting this guy make movies?” I’ve seen someone ask.

Well, he does. Shyamalan’s recent projects are funded with his own money, through his own production company, and they’re distributed by Universal, because his last four movies (and it looks like Knock at the Cabin will follow suit) turned an excellent profit. Among his other good points, Shyamalan works with a lean budget, and at this point is probably one of the safer investments in an ever more unstable film industry. 2016’s Split made nearly $280 million on a $9 million budget. 2021’s Old, despite sluggish post-COVID box office performance, managed to pull in over $90 million. Knock at the Cabin is the first movie to push Avatar: The Way of Water out of the number one spot since its release nearly two months ago. This is all easily verifiable information, and yet I still see Shyamalan referred to as “failing upward,” releasing one embarrassing flop after another.

So I must assume it’s the earnestness that turns people off to his work. While not overly religious, there’s a thread of faith and belief that runs through most of Shyamalan’s movies — the child that guides the dead to the light in The Sixth Sense, those who have suffered being lifted up as “pure” in Split, the concept of sacrificing one to save many in Knock at the Cabin. Many of his films address the idea of things existing beyond our comprehension in a way that’s meant to be both frightening and comforting at the same time.

Some of Shyamalan’s ideas — trees forcing people to commit suicide, a group of people gaslighting their children into believing it’s the 19th century — are pretty silly, but clearly he doesn’t think they are, and he presents them in a serious¹, straightforward manner. Much like far too many people now seem to want filmmakers like Martin Scorsese to clearly state that he doesn’t endorse criminal behavior, so too do they seem to want Shyamalan, both in real life and in his films, to wink at the audience and say “Man, this is dumb, isn’t it?”

Actually, I write all this, and I don’t really care. People are, of course, allowed to not like what they don’t like, even if it’s loudly and obnoxiously. I must admit I don’t get those who insist on watching what they clearly don’t enjoy, seemingly for the sole purpose of complaining about it, but I also realize that complaining is the oil that lubricates social media interaction, and lord knows I’m not above it. It’s just that M. Night Shyamalan is such an innocuous target for hatred, like spitting on a basket of puppies or protesting an ice cream social. Either we want filmmakers to stand tall in the pushback against the Disney/Marvel machine, or we don’t. You don’t have to like Shyamalan’s movies, but at least be glad he’s still out there making them.

1. That doesn’t mean Shyamalan’s movies are humorless — in fact, the funniest bits are often related to the cameo roles he casts himself in, such as a Hooters-loving security guard in Split, and an informercial host selling an air fryer in Knock at the Cabin.