After a string of supernatural thrillers and contained horrors, M. Night Shyamalan is returning to the high-concept well that birthed hits like The Sixth Sense and Signs. Warner Bros. has unveiled the first trailer for the director’s mysterious new film Trap, which puts Josh Hartnett in the most perilous position of his career resurgence.
While plot details have been closely guarded, the trailer teases a devilishly twisted premise. Hartnett stars as a suburban father attending a concert for pop star Lady Raven (played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka) with his teenage daughter Jody. But what seems like an innocent night out takes a dark turn when Hartnett’s character learns there is a heavy police presence due to a serial killer being tracked at the venue.
In a shocking, Shyamalan-esque twist, it’s revealed that Hartnett’s character is the very killer law enforcement is hunting, holding an unknown victim hostage as seen on his phone. The trailer ends with the visibly unhinged Hartnett letting out a maniacal laugh, leaving audiences to put the twisted pieces together.
Trap marks another welcome return to provocative, elevated horror for the Sixth Sense director after pandemic hit Old and last year’s eerie chiller Knock at the Cabin. But it also represents a wonderful career opportunity for leading man Hartnett, who has been experiencing an overdue resurgence of late.
After becoming a household name in the early 2000s with performances in films like Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, and Lucky Number Slevin, Hartnett took a step back from major movie roles for years. He reemerged in 2022 with showy parts in Oppenheimer and the cult sci-fi hit Mickey17 before landing his juiciest role in ages with Trap.
Playing a father juggling a deadly secret and disturbing psychosis, the Shyamalan film allows Hartnett to tap into the intense, brooding screen presence that made him a star over 20 years ago while evolving into darker, more challenging territory. If marketed correctly, it could reestablish the 44-year-old actor as a formidable leading man for years to come.
It’s exactly the kind of meaty, showy role actors crave to relaunch their careers. And there may be no better collaborator than Shyamalan, who consistently draws great performances by crafting taut, suspenseful psychological thrillers that allow his stars to truly disappear into rich, complex characters.
From Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable to Mel Gibson in Signs and James McAvoy’s iconic turn(s) in Split, Shyamalan has a gift for finding the humanity in even the most disturbed individuals and coaxing mesmerizing, offbeat performances out of his leads. His penchant for casting relatable stars as unassuming everymen makes their jarring descents into darkness and madness all the more transfixing.
In the case of Trap, he seems to have found the perfect vehicle to maximize Hartnett’s haunted vulnerability and hangdog menace. The concert setting and high stakes of the killer targeting an audience makes for inherently pulpy, nail-biting tension. But grounding that in a story of a seemingly normal dad going off the deep end gives it an extra layer of unsettling psychological depth.
It’s a premise that feels tailor-made for Shyamalan’s signature brand of slowly unraveling, Hitchcockian twists and turns. The director excels at upending expectations and keeping audiences on their toes, which the Trap trailer does in spades with its jolting narrative feint of having Hartnett appear to narrowly escape the real threat.
Even the title is rife with double meaning – referring to both the literal trap authorities have set for the killer and the figurative emotional/mental trap Hartnett’s character finds himself in. That rich, layered ambiguity is pure Shyamalan, laying the groundwork for a thematically hefty character study cloaked in pulpy, pop thrills.
Indeed, per the filmmaker’s own comments, it seems Trap will indulge his love of dark humor and genre mashups in the vein of recent efforts like Split. The winking, over-the-top final laugh on the trailer hints at some deliciously campy self-awareness lurking beneath the film’s slick psychological horror aesthetic.
It’s the perfect tonal balance for a mind-bending summer chiller. Retaining a sense of playfulness and ironic distance helps prevent the story from becoming too grim or self-serious. That fun, knowing edge is part of the reason critics have embraced later-period Shyamalan works like The Visit while audiences eat up their deranged, horror-tinged sensibilities.
Adding to Trap’s entertainment factor is the seemingly rich supporting cast Shyamalan has assembled. Aside from the accomplished Hartnett, the film features 87-year-old screen legend Hayley Mills in an as-yet-unknown role, sparking all sorts of intriguing possibilities for a Grande Dame Horror moment a la Jessica Tandy in Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Then there’s Shyamalan’s own daughter Saleka playing pop star Lady Raven, which should lend some familial authenticity and lovingly satirical jabs at the vapid excesses of modern music celebrity. Having a real-life musician performing on-screen injects grit and specificity to the central concert setting and Lady Raven’s public persona.
Following his daughter Ishana’s recent writing/directing debut The Watchers, which Shyamalan produced, the collaboration also continues the filmmaker’s heartwarming efforts to shepherd the next generation of talents in his own family. Hollywood is no stranger to nepotism, but few directors have leveraged their success to foster genuine creative development like the proudly insular Shyamalan clan.
So while plot details remain predictably scarce – it wouldn’t be a Shyamalan film without plenty of twists and rug-pulls – the pieces are falling into place for Trap to become another celebrated late-career gem for the master of suspense.
At first blush, the film looks to blend the best of Shyamalan’s recent psychological horror forays with the taut, high-concept edge of his seminal 2000s hits like The Village and Lady in the Water. Throw in Josh Hartnett operating at the peak of his smoldering intensity, and you have all the makings of a thoroughly wicked summer movie going experience.
Trap hits theaters on August 9th, giving Shyamalan another primetime opportunity to lure audiences into another devilishly clever cinematic web. With its sly camp streak, juicy premise, and the long-overdue leading man return of Josh Hartnett, it’s shaping up to be one of the director’s most purely entertaining and tantalizingly twisted narratives in years.
Just remember – in the world of M. Night Shyamalan, nothing is quite as it seems. The hunters can quickly become the hunted. And audience expectations are merely the bait for an even more shocking reveal lurking just ahead.