A Scandi entry in the cabin-in-the-woods horror subgenre, Joonas Pajunen and Max Seeck’s feature debut starts out in rather familiar territory. Years after a gruesome tragedy where their father is bludgeoned with an axe and their mother disappears, three siblings return to the site of the crime: their childhood home nestled in the depths of a mysterious forest.
For much of its slow-burn running time, The Knocking ploughs the furrow of the reductive trauma plot that has weighed down many contemporary horror films. The tense reunion stirs up past secrets and resentments, and the characters are defined less by memorable traits than merely by revelations of the abuse they endured as children. The visuals are pretty much forgettable also, with overuse of that one stylistic device familiar from a litany of scary movies: an aerial drone shot of a car speeding down a lonely road, flanked by foreboding trees.
Though shackled to a lacklustre beginning and middle, the third act proves to be an impressive surprise. In the same way that their dark family history has slowly poisoned the souls of the siblings, a malevolent force is also leaking out of every branch of the eerie forest. This culminates in a nearly wordless and surreal chase sequence bathed in crimson light. Without giving too much away, the earlier mentions of past trauma finally coalesce into a more concrete form of monstrous dread, transforming what could have been a run-of-the-mill flick into a thrilling eco-horror parable. The orchestral, classical-inflected score is another nice touch that further elevates the fatalistic final scenes. The Knocking is ultimately a drive worth taking.
• The Knocking is released on 4 September on digital platforms.
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