The Trap, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, stars actor Josh Hartnett, actress Ariel Donoghue and actress Saleka Shyamalan. The plot starts when Hartnett, the father in the story, takes his daughter, played by Donoghue, to a concert by pop star Lady Raven, who is played by Shyamalan. It was discovered by Hartnett from a worker that the concert was a trap set by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to catch the murderer known as “the Butcher.”
This film was inspired by the Operation Flagship event which occurred in 1985. Operation Flagship was a covert sting conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service. The operation involved sending over 3,000 free NFL tickets to known fugitives with outstanding warrants for the Washington Redskins (now the Washington Commanders) game against the Cincinnati Bengals. The fugitives were unaware that by attending the pre-game brunch and game they would be walking into their own arrest.
The film used a concert as the attraction to lead the felon into custody while Operation Flagship used a popular sporting event to attract the fugitives. The ending of the film differs from the true ending of Operation Flagship, which leaves the audience questioning if there is a second movie because of the film’s cliffhanger.
The data like the ranking the movie out of ten and rotten tomatoes shows that this movie, along with others like “Old” or “Knock at the cabin” that were released recently are the downfall of Shyamalan’s career. Shyamalan has always been known to make great horror films, but many movies have been rated under seven out of 10 and received 65% or less in terms of favorability on Rotten Tomatoes, according to IMBD. Although The Trap has only been out for six weeks, the movie’s ratings are low and aren’t even comparing with the movies in the box office it is running with.
The feeling of being scared does not stop people from going to haunted houses and watching horror movies. One of my fears is blood from a paper cut to the elevator full of fake blood in Stephen King’s The Shining. I prefer not to deal with the sight of it. Now, this fear has never personally stopped me from watching horror movies. I just slightly close my eyes during those parts. Thankfully, The Trap didn’t have any blood for me to worry about.
Yet this movie is blood-less; it also starts slow and rather disappointing because the mystery of not knowing the Butcher is revealed in the first five minutes. Shyamalan focuses on Cooper, the main character, too much. It gives the horror aspect a way of disappearing. The type of fear in The Trap is calm rather than the kind of fear that would make you want to close your eyes.
The movie’s visuals, angle shots and music brings such an experience of horror, but the writing of the movie was not executed well enough to be a scary thriller. There are scenes in which you doubt what will happen next, but then the less unthinkable happens, which then causes confusion in relation to the actions.
Hartnett is able to manipulate his facial expressions, giving some scenes a darker undertone and giving away that he is the Butcher. It is not to say that Hartnett’s acting was subpar. However it is the plot and details Shyamalan chose to take from the event Operation Flagship situation that hurt Hartnett’s vision of acting. Hartnett’s acting included hesitating and tripping over words while trying to fill the empty horror that overcame the written script.
Overall, The Trap is a flopped horror movie, despite all the attempts to make it scary including the music and sound effects. The writing of this movie was rather disappointing and is the downfall of M. Night Shyamalan’s horror movie career.
