Over the last ten years, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has managed something of a career renaissance. After a string of terribly received films including “The Last Airbender” in 2010 and “After Earth” in 2013, he slowly started to turn things around. In 2024, Shyamalan is coming off of the one-two punch of the financially successful but critically mixed films of “Old” and “Knock at the Cabin.”
Here comes the next shot of horror with the succinctly titled “Trap.”
This will be the first original story from Shyamalan since 2019’s “Glass.” The films he’s made in the interim have been adaptations of other works, even though the screenplays were written by him. It seems fitting that “Trap” also seems to be returning the director to the story of a more villainous person. Josh Hartnett, fresh off his turn in “Oppenheimer,” plays a father taking his daughter to the concert of a pop idol sensation, Lady Raven. (Lady Raven is actually played by Shyamalan’s real-life daughter, singer Saleka.) He seems like a pretty chill dad; he’s a bit goofy and clearly cares about his daughter. He also sees pretty observant about there being a lot of cameras and police present.
Things begin to take a turn as Hartnett’s character starts talking with a guy selling merch, who seems to know way more information than any guy selling merch should possibly know. As it turns out, the whole concert is a set-up to catch a serial killer known as “The Butcher.” Wouldn’t you just know it, but it would seem that Hartnett himself is “The Butcher” who now has to find a way out of the venue and return home to the victim he has trapped somewhere. If the camera monitor he’s keeping with him is any indication, seems to be in the basement. Oh and he’s got his own daughter to tend to as well.
It can’t really be that simple though, right? This is M. Night Shyamalan we’re talking about here and very few of his projects are just that straightforward. Maybe Hartnett’s daughter is the actual Butcher, or maybe Lady Raven is the criminal mastermind behind a whole army of Butchers! Or maybe the concert isn’t the trap, but it’s actually a lure to bring someone in who’s a serial killer of butchers; your guess is as good as ours. The main point is, Josh Hartnett looks pretty menacing and rides that line between charming and evil that we’ve seen before in Shyamalan characters like Mr. Glass.
“Trap” hits theaters August 8th, 2024. You can check out the trailer below:
