Dave Bautista as a Horror Villain Is Freaking Me Out
Since pivoting from professional wrestler to movie star, Dave Bautista has enjoyed a career in some of the biggest film franchises of the 21st century, including epic sci-fi adventures like Guardians of the Galaxy and Dune, zombie apocalypse fare like Army of the Dead, and even trading blows with James Bond himself in Specter.
Now, it looks like Bautista is entering a new phase of his career, stepping away from action-heavy roles in order to show off his chops as an actor. Next month he can be seen in the ensemble cast of Rian Johnson's new whodunnit Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and a brand new trailer has just dropped for M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming horror film Knock at the Cabin, in which Bautista has a starring role.
Knock at the Cabin is based on the novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, and the first of the horror author's hugely popular books to be adapted for the screen. While the title has been changed, the small amount of footage shown in the trailer certainly suggests that the plot has remained exactly the same, beginning with a gay couple named Andrew and Eric (Jonathan Groff and Eric Alkridge) taking their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) on vacation to an idyllic cabin in the woods—which, let's be honest, is their first mistake. A cabin? In the woods? In this economy?
It's not long before Andrew, Eric, and Wen receive some uninvited visitors: a quartet of strangers named Leonard, Adriane, Sabrina, and Redmond, all of whom arrive at the cabin on foot from the surrounding woods carrying some alarming-looking tools. They are portrayed by Dave Bautista, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint.
While each of these interlopers is deeply unsettling in their own way, Leonard is very much presented as the leader of their group: in the book he treads a fine line between earnestness and genuine menace, and Bautista absolutely conveys that in the trailer, physically towering over everyone else on screen.
As horror villains go, Leonard is an incredibly complicated one. To say anything more would very much count as a spoiler, but it's safe to say this is a huge departure for Bautista. And it's a challenge that he has embraced: back in May, Bautista revealed that he had gained weight in order to play Leonard, who is not in as amazing shape as a WWE star-turned-actor, but still physically imposing.
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