Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Trap (2024)
Summary
As someone who goes toM. Night Shyamalanmovies expecting enjoyable absurdity, I couldn’t help but feel let down whenTrap’s ending turned out to be so uncharacteristically reasonable. If I try to judge the Josh Hartnett comeback objectively, 2024’sTrapis by no means a bad movie. Hartnett gives another one of those late-career performances that channels his easy charisma into a darker place, the pacing is tense, and there are a handful of fun supporting characters. However, as someone who once defendedM. Night Shyamalan’s silly but fun twist endingsat length, I was still disappointed.
WhenTrap’s endingarrived, the biggest surprise was my lack of surprise. The last-minute twist that I had come to expect from the director was nowhere to be found, and I was left with a serviceable thriller that worked fine but could have been directed by any number of journeymen/women. Shyamalan’sThe Sixth Senseleft everyone dazzled by the ingenuity of its twist, but 2004’s unfairly malignedThe Villageand 2002’s guilty pleasureSignsleft viewers equally shocked, even if their twists made a lot less sense. In contrast, evenTrap’s post-credits scenewas unsurprising.
Why Girls Keep Getting Sick At The Concert In Trap
Trap sees Josh Hartnett’s dad/serial killer Cooper trapped at a pop star’s concert, but why do young attendees keep fainting during the show?
Trap’s Ending Didn’t Live Up To M. Night Shyamalan’s Expectations
Trap Doesn’t Feature An Outlandish Twist Like Most Shyamalan Movies
Like a lot of viewers, I don’t come to M. Night Shyamalan movies expecting a perfectly passable thriller likeTrap. I seek out the director’s works to see twists that don’t quite add up but shock me so much that I find it hard to care.Trap’s ending could have revealed that Hartnett’s Cooper wasn’t really the Butcher and that the FBI had focused on catching the wrong man because the unhinged protagonist merely believed himself to be the killer. The movie could have ended with Jonathan Langdon’s Jamie helping Cooper escape, only to reveal he was an FBI agent.
There are at least a dozen absurd twists that could have elevated Trap’s story.
Lady Raven could have been Cooper’s unlikely accomplice throughoutTrap’s entire story, or Cooper’s wife Rachel could have revealed she was working with her husband. There are at least a dozen absurd twists that could have elevatedTrap’s story not in a traditional sense, but in the cheerfully absurd way that makes M. Night Shyamalan’s movies unique. Notall of M. Night Shyamalan’s twistswork, but all of them make his movies stand out in a crowded marketplace.Trap, in contrast, felt like just another horror thriller that any competent director could have put together.
M. Night Shyamalan Can Typically Be Relied On For A Wild Ending
It is easy to list how Shyamalan’s best movies are stronger thanTrap.The Sixth SenseandUnbreakablefeature two historically great twist endings, but they also feature two of Bruce Willis’ best mid-career performances and a strong supporting cast. It is more instructive to compare Shyamalan’s lesser movies toTrapand see how even their twists could have elevated the thriller. 2015’s found footage horrorThe Visitis another lone-location horror-adjacent thriller where a family member turns out to be a malign murderer, and its twist is almost laughable and predictable.
However,The Visitworked for me because the movie refused to admit just how obvious its twist was. By the time the heroes were spilling stuff on their webcam solely so their mother conveniently couldn’t see their grandparents, it was pretty blatantly clear where the story was heading. Still, this worked far better thanTraprefusing to offer any surprise, twist, or subversion of expectations. Similarly, 2016’sSplitwasn’t perfect, but its twist linked the movie to the larger universe of Shyamalan’s offerings and proved it was more than a standalone story. In contrast,Trapfelt small and inconsequential.
Why Trap’s Ending Didn’t Work For Me
Trap’s Ending Was Exactly What I Expected From The Movie’s Premise
When I saw the first trailer forTrap, I immediately knew how the movie’s story would go.Trap’s villain protagonist would spend most of the movie trying to escape the concert trap before, eventually, a draggy third act took his chase outside the venue. There wouldn’t be many deaths since that would be too dark, and the story would wrap up with him caught but not dead. Then I saw who was directingTrap, and I was much more excited.
Cooper might have been imagining Jamie altogether, or the FBI might have ended up catching someone else when he misled them.
Although the movie’s rating meantTrap’s lack of character deathswas still an inevitability,I thought anything was possible with Shyamalan at the helm. Maybe Cooper’s daughter would turn out to be his accomplice in killing, or maybe he would succeed in escaping the FBI and kill his family in a daringly downbeat twist. Cooper might have been imagining Jamie altogether, or the FBI might have ended up catching someone else when he misled them.Trap’s directorM. Night Shyamalanmade me hope for a wild ending, but the biggest surprise ended up being the movie’s predictable conclusion.
