Ah, fatherhood. A favorite pastime of dads everywhere. It seemed only fitting to follow up my review of The Mummy with a film about a Daddy*.

After all, as I sometimes remember that I recently decided, Octoberween is a long-standing family tradition for many of our twelve dedicated readers. Like The Mummy, Trap is a movie you could watch with some of your kids. What could be more wholesome and relatable than a motion picture about a father taking his daughter to a concert?

Trap (2024):

The Plot: Cooper (Josh Hartnett), an endearingly lame suburban dad, takes his tween daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite popstar (Saleka) in concert. Initially just concerned with getting to their seats on time and helping Riley deal with some mean girls from school, Cooper soon discovers that the concert is actually an elaborate trap (title of the movie!) to ensnare a prolific serial killer nicknamed “The Butcher”. Unfortunately for him–and unbeknownst to his daughter–Cooper is “The Butcher”. Will he outsmart the police and maintain his double life? Will Riley have a fun time at the concert? Will director M. Night Shyamalan have a cameo? The answers may not surprise you, but they will entertain.

M. Night Shyamalan is having something of a redemption arc with audiences lately. He was largely–and unfairly, to my mind–written off as “The Twist Guy” for a while in the mid/late-2000s, and his reputation took a beating with the back-to-back misfires of The Happening and The Last Airbender. I know some people consider The Village and Lady in the Water to be part of that bad movie cycle, but the former is one of his best (fight me) and I just can’t hate the latter.

The highs and lows of M. Night Shyamalan’s career could certainly fill their own blog post, so I’ll leave it at this: He’s made more good movies than bad, and I think posterity will be kind to his filmography. At his best, Shyamalan tells original, thought-provoking stories with engaging characters who wrestle with real problems. He’s known for his twists, but if you’re only watching his movies through the lens of a Robot Chicken sketch from 2005 then you’re missing out.

That having been said, Trap is a breezy thriller that’s more interested in taking its audience on a roller coaster ride than in conveying deep messages about the human condition. This is absolutely not a flaw. Shyamalan is mostly operating without the trademark heart he usually wears on his sleeve, trading it instead for a lightly wicked sense of humor. Everything is pitched at exactly the right tonal level: The father-daughter bonding, the concert, the close calls with clueless cops. Trap has a deft touch with the protagonist’s actual crimes, which is essential when the audience spends so much time rooted in Cooper’s perspective. We’re not exactly pulling for him to escape, but since we only ever hear his crimes described–he kills and dismembers people who “think they have life figured out”, a relatable motive if there ever was one–the film creates enough distance from them that we can still feel some sympathy for the devil.

In the larger context of Shyamalan’s filmography, Trap reads like a playful inversion of movies like Signs, The Village, and Old. Those films use genre trappings to explore, among other things, the crushing futility parents can feel when trying to protect their children from the harsh realities of life. Cooper is not interested in that. If he’s trying to shield Riley from the knowledge of his crimes, it’s only because he would like to keep committing them; he views his family as a cover for his “real” life as a serial killer.

We’re aware that Cooper is “The Butcher” right from the start (it’s the premise of the movie, not a twist), and in each “public” moment Josh Hartnett is clearly but subtly playing Cooper as a man putting on a performance. He uses just the right degree of forced heartiness in his interactions with other characters. Something always feels slightly off about him, but in a way that doesn’t make you wonder if everyone else in the movie was recently lobotomized. Maybe he’s just too friendly! Maybe he’s playing up the Lame Dad stuff because it’s hard to connect with his tween daughter! Maybe this concert is stressful enough without the mother of his daughter’s bully pestering him to “talk it out” every twenty minutes! It’s such a smartly calibrated performance, and it’s truly a joy to watch Cooper become increasingly sweaty and desperate as he loses control and the police start closing in.

As Riley, Ariel Donogue is an excellent foil to Hartnett’s off-kilter killer. Her job is to play a normal tween, which as anyone who has ever been twelve can tell you is very difficult. She gives an open, grounded performance that is absolutely vital to the “reality” of the film. The same is true of Saleka, pulling double duty acting and singing as Lady Raven. If the concert didn’t feel plausible, the whole movie would fall apart. She’s believable as a world famous pop star with a dedicated fanbase. Her performance off-stage is a little wooden, but in a way that feels suited to the material. Lady Raven the Star is magnetic on stage, but IRL she’s just…a nice person who keeps her head in an emergency. Saleka has a likeable presence, and I believed that Riley would be totally obsessed with her.

If Trap has a fault, or at least one that bothered me, it’s that it goes on for maybe 10-15 minutes too long. The film is an utterly preposterous thriller right from the start, but Shyamalan keeps up the momentum so well for most of the runtime that Cooper’s bad choices and absurd luck are a feature, not a bug. There are a few too many false climaxes (they have him this time, or do they?!), but it’s not enough to ruin the movie by any means. The actual ending sticks the landing, in a way that wraps up the story nicely and even lets Shyamalan indulge in a little welcome sentimentality**.

Ultimately, Trap is a good time and a fun way to get in the Octoberween spirit. Spooky, but not scary. Thrilling, but also laugh-out-loud funny at times (I saw this in theaters, and there’s a moment with a piano that made the crowd lose it). Also worth noting: Even for PG-13, Trap is refreshingly light on violence. I feel like this movie would totally kill at an eighth-grade sleepover, and I mean that as high praise.

Give it a watch, and let me know how much you agree with my good opinions in the comments***.

Trap is currently streaming on Max, unless you’re reading this at some point in the future when it isn’t. I think you can also rent it from maybe Amazon Prime or YouTube? Again, if you’re from the future I can only predict so much about the streaming landscape, y’know?

*This is clever wordplay, you see, because “mummy” is also how a British person might refer to a mother.

**He doesn’t make cynical movies, and I like that!

***Lots, I would imagine.