Knock at the Cabin ending explained: What happens at the end of the movie?

M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin is now available to stream on Peacock. Need to understand the twists at the end? Here’s the explanation you need.

Caution: As you should expect from the title, this post contains major spoilers for the end of Knock at the Cabin.

Fans of M. Night Shyamalan movies know that there are twists at the end. Knock at the Cabin could have been difficult to bring a twist since it was based on a book. However, the plot of the movie changed to allow for a bigger change at the end of the movie.

What was that change? How did the story play out? It’s time to break the events down to be able to explain them.

Is the apocalypse real in Knock at the Cabin?

Throughout the movie, we find out that the four strangers come to warn Eric and Andrew of the coming apocalypse. They and their daughter need to make a choice. One of them needs to sacrifice themselves (by choice) to save the world. They can’t make that sacrifice through suicide, which means one of them has to kill another.

The strangers are the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse. They each cover war, pestilence, hunger, and death in their own ways. Just look at the colors they wear and how they match the Four Horsemen.

As each Horseman dies, another wave of the apocalypse happens. Dave Bautista’s Leonard is the last one to die just as lightning starts fires everywhere.

The family is ready to just leave. Andrew refuses to believe anything, but Eric does believe. He saw a figure in the mirror. That wasn’t the concussion. He’s sure that the apocalypse is going to happen and one of them needs to die. It can’t be their daughter, and Eric says that he’s ready to be the sacrifice. Andrew doesn’t want to do it, but he can see that his husband is genuine and serious about this.

So, Andrew kills Ericand then takes Winn away from the cabin. They get to a cafe where suddenly all the apocalyptic events just end. Phones start ringing to say that people have made it out of events alive, and it looks like the world is going on the way it should.

Andrew and Winn see that everything the Four Horsemen said was true. The stories they told of who they are were true—all their belongings were in the car to confirm identities. While the book keeps things ambiguous, Knock at the Cabin confirmed that Eric made a sacrifice to save the world.

Knock at the Cabin is now streaming on Peacock.