Twist-meister M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t always been a beloved director, enjoying the highs of The Sixth Sense and then suffering the crushing career lows of Lady In The Water and The Last Airbender. But? He’s an excellent dad, as proven by his tantalising latest project Trap; a high-concept thriller about a very bad dad with a dark secret, in which the director’s own daughter gets to live out her Swiftie pop star fantasies. You don’t have to set up an elaborate law enforcement scheme to coax us into cinemas for it.
How to watch Trap in New Zealand
Trap is now screening in New Zealand cinemas.
Trap (2024)
What is Trap about?
Father-daughter bonding! Daggy dad Cooper brings his teen daughter Riley to megastar Lady Raven’s arena concert, as a treat for her good grades. Once he starts to notice an elevated cop presence at the event, however, he needs to start plotting an escape…because, unbeknownst to this nice guy’s whole family, he’s secretly the Philadelphia serial killer known as “The Butcher”, and the entire show is an extremely scattershot attempt to pin him down. Picture Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour but as a murderous mousetrap.
The cast of Trap
Josh Hartnett is entirely magnetic as Cooper, putting his good looks and furtive, beady eyes to wicked use. Aussie actress Ariel Donoghue is superfan Riley; Hayley Mills plays a criminal psychologist, which is hilarious considering her best-known role in the original The Parent Trap; Alison Pill shows up late in the game as Cooper’s oblivious wife; and Kid Cudi has a funny cameo as wigged-up rapper The Thinker.
Most adorably of all, the director casts his own daughter Saleka Night Shyamalan—a singer-songwriter of heretofore little fame—as the central concert’s globe-conquering pop sensation. The things we do for love!
Trap trailer
Why we’re excited about Trap
The best Shyamalan movies combine an attention-grabbing, single sentence synopsis (see: a beach that makes you old) with emotive themes of parenthood and family paranoia (see: bringing your young kids to the beach that makes you old).
Our critic Luke Buckmaster called the film “aggravatingly written and almost unbelievably stupid” in his review, but we’ve been sold on this neat new concept since the trailer, which tauntingly spoiled Trap‘s meaty concept from the jump. Could Shyamalan possibly pack in another twist on top of that rug-pulling setup? Plus it’s great to see Hartnett back in leading man mode, albeit with a deliciously dark twist.
