For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Day 1 prompt is M. Night Shyamalan. I watched the new movie, Trap on Amazon Prime Video.
Storyline
In M. Night Shyamalan’s latest outing, everyone in a large city is in a frenzy. Why? That’s because they’re up and ready to watch a concert performed by famous pop star Lady Raven. Two of her fans, a man named Cooper and his daughter Riley, attend the concert with high spirits, but things slowly begin to change their tune. Amongst the screams of adoration and sounds of applause, the concert itself has a hidden identity: a front to fish out an infamous serial killer known as The Butcher. With security cameras rigged, armies of policemen with weapons at the ready, and police vehicles surrounding the venue, will anyone survive their concert experience or is there more to The Butcher than meets the eye?
Our Thoughts on Trap (2024)
My first thought was this is a mash-up between Psycho (1960) and a Taylor Swift concert. It was notably bad. M. Night says that the premise is if Silence of the Lambs took place at a theatrical performance and he is right.
Josh Hartnett just did not do a good job in this film. He looks like he is faking his performance and it is contrived.
M. Night Shyamalan is one of my favorite directors but this one will go down as a one-watch.
3 out of 10
Trivia
M. Night Shyamalan declared in an interview that the plot was inspired by the Washington D.C. “Operation Flagship” sting operation on December 15, 1985, which was organized by the U.S. Marshals Service and the Metropolitan Police to lure wanted fugitives to the Washington Convention Center under the pretense of free tickets. It resulted in 101 arrests, one of the largest and most successful mass arrests of fugitives by U.S. law enforcement.
The character of Cooper uses an iPhone which deviates from the rules Apple tries to enforce where villains aren’t allowed to do so. This is probably because the director financed the film on his own.
A full album titled “Lady Raven” was released as the official soundtrack to this movie, featuring the songs heard in the singer’s concert. They were all composed by singer Saleka Shyamalan.
