Josh Hartnett gets caught in a Trap in new M. Night Shyamalan trailer
M. Night Shyamalan's Trap, starring Josh Hartnett, premieres in theaters August 9
Film News Trap
What if the public event you were attending was entirely a setup just to getcha? That’s the nightmare of paranoiacs and Truman Show fans everywhere, and also the premise of M. Night Shyamalan’s new film Trap, premiering in theaters August 9. A new trailer for the film takes advantage of star Josh Hartnett’s good-guy image by casting him as the dad-joke-cracking sweetheart taking his daughter to see her favorite artist. But this is a Shyamalan movie, so obviously, the concert—and Hartnett himself—are more sinister than they appear.
You see, this trailer lets you in on a secret almost immediately: that sweet ol’ dad is also “The Butcher,” the “freakin’ nutjob that goes around just chopping people up,” as one of the merch table attendants describes him. He’s got somebody locked in his secret murder room as the concert goes on, but the feds are literally closing in on the concert. You may think that’s giving too much of the movie away, but the story isn’t “Who is The Butcher?” The story is, “Will The Butcher be able to escape the trap, and be able to do so without letting his daughter know he’s an evil villain?”
According to IndieWire, Shyamalan said Trap was inspired by Purple Rain (and perhaps by allowing his daughter to live out her own pop star fantasies, since his daughter Saleka plays the idol Lady Raven). The director staged an actual concert befitting of The Eras Tour to film Trap, but he began conceptualizing the movie years before this summer’s big blockbuster tours. “Sometimes, culture moves in your direction, and sometimes it doesn’t,” he told IndieWire. “In this case, the culture of concerts is crazy now. Taylor [Swift] and Beyoncé—it’s just such a thing in culture. And I do think gathering together is so precious to us now. Maybe we took it for granted before our phones and COVID and all that stuff. It’s wonderful that the culture moved toward this idea.”
Speaking at an event earlier this week, Shyamalan said (per IndieWire), “I leaned more and more to this dark humor angle that Servant has, and The Visit, and Split has. Really embracing that, and making sure it’s just a fun time for everybody gasping. It’s odd to be laughing when you should be terrified, and terrified when you’re laughing at the same time.”
30 Comments
This looks like an awesome idea but I’m not sure M Night will not fuck it up. I did love Spilt and The visit but even knock at the cabin was only okay.
M.Night has interesting ideas, though more often than not the execution tends to not live up to the hype.
“Yeah, there’s a secret government plot to catch a sadistic serial killer and I, a simple concession stand worker know all about it.”Jokes aside, this concept does seem so realistically dumb that I could actually see something like this in current headlines. Also, after Penny Dreadful, I’m all for Josh Hartnett being in anything.
I will renew my call here, now that Josh Hartnett is back, for a movie with any plot, don’t care what, where he and Tommy Lee Jones play a father/son team.
THANK YOU. I’ve always said that they should play father & son. Or Hartnett could play the young version of a character, Jones the older, but I’d prefer the first option.
The question is, does Hartnett possess any level of buffoonery, and is it of a level Jones can sanction?
My friends who write horror tell me that the most outrageous premise is the best premise.
My pschyo mother died 15 months ago and I’m still reeling from the horror show she (unknown to me) introduced 22 years ago. People keep telling me “you should write a movie.” Nah, friend, I’m still trying to find a lawyer who can deal with this insanity.
Oh, buddy, I want to know everything.
Not here.
I’ve written 300 pages, and I’ll probably write three times that until I get it right because it ain’t over. When (if) it’s finally done maybe I’ll just dox myself because I don’t really gaf any more. It’s easy to spot evil people at a distance but when they’re close the mind-fuckery can be imperceptible.
Agreed. And my thing for Josh Hartnett goes way back to 1998’s The Faculty.
I miss that weird side swoop his hair had in the late 90s.
I’m definitely in on this, it’s either going to be actually creepy or merely goofy.Night’s daughter actually does have a reasonable music career though. She’s toured with some known people like Boys II Men & the like. I think she’s a pretty by the numbers R&B singer, but she’s kinda already living the pop star fantasy at least a bit.
Better than casting himself again then!
That was my first thought. That he’d gone from casting himself as a writer who would change the world to casting his kids as important famous people.
If Shayamalan had cast himself as a pop icon with legions of tween fans, I would have to admire the chutzpah of it.
This looks great. Whether Shyamalan can execute remains another question — the man has killer hooks but is hit-or-miss on delivery. I am cautiously optimistic, frankly given Hartnett’s* involvement even more so than Shyamalan’s. *The man is underrated, underutilized, and overdue for a renaissance.
I’ve seen him in so many high concept horror movies that my brain refuses to believe that isn’t Ethan Hawke. This looks like great dumb fun and I’m all in for it.
Haha, so I watched the trailer before reading the article, and when it got to the point where the concessions worker is explaining the trap, I was like, “oh obviously Josh Hartnett is the serial killer.” And then I was like, wait that’s so obvious that maybe that’s not it? And then the trailer reveals that that’s part of the premise.So anyway, now I’m wondering, is this movie going to expect the audience to root for the serial killer to escape the trap? Or is there going to be a different protagonist?
Let me be the first to guess that the guy in the basement is the Butcher and he killed the guy’s wife two years ago.
And it would make sense if the girl is actually his daughter and is not in on it as a mini psycho apprentice. What I want to know, is how the director will hold the tension throughout the movie’s runtime.
Cuts to the guy in the basement trying to escape? And if he does that will add to the story. It looks like there’s going to be a lot of action once the concert is interrupted.
The Merch Seller says “Don’t rat me out.” For the best horror writers every single word matters – like poetry.
Yeah, there’s going to be some other swerve, no doubt about it. Trailer looked kind of fun, though, so color me interested.
Having someone stare into the camera and explain the plot is a weird choice for a trailer.Also, Saleka and Ishana are not the same people. Linking to the Watchers article is misleading.
“Having someone stare into the camera and explain the plot is a weird choice for a trailer”Unless you’re Rod Serling and it’s the Twilight Zone.
Fair, but MNS is not Rod Serling, as much as he wants to be.
“Will The Butcher be able to escape the trap, and be able to do so without letting his daughter know he’s an evil villain?” That sounds terrible, which means it is still better than the actual movie will end up being.
Into this trap we’ve introduced tens of thousands of extra variables, who are all possible victims as well, in a giant building filled with dozens and dozens of exits and hiding places.It’s actually fine for a movie, but it is real dumb. Then again, he also seems to be saying that concerts where taken for granted because of covid and phones, except for the fact that was a thing people specifically pined for…
Horror is difficult for me but this trailer is irresistable.
The conceit though: Let’s endanger thousands of people so we can catch one psycho because killers can’t resist a pop concert. I’m going with another commenter’s idea that the Butcher is already in the basement. Odds that the pop star will get killed in a spray of gunfire and ice chips? Maybe the singer is in on it? Maybe it’s the daughter, ala Frailty?
I’ve wanted Hartnett to get more recognition since seeing him in a film that’s either called ‘Lucky Number Slevin’ or ‘The Wrong Man’ depending on where you saw it. The film itself is a pleasant enough trifle, but he does some great work switching from charm to pathos in it.
I have generally enjoyed the Shyamalan train wrecks (“y’all eyin’ my lemon drink?”-The Happening) but I thought he might have gone two far with how terribly they changed the last act of Knock at the Cabin, such an incredible sellout. That said, you know you’re going to get something crazy and possibly very bad with huge plot holes that is reasonably entertaining, if only because of the previous. One thing I won’t miss is this: in “Old” the family is always singing along to the same song. It is an incredibly terrible song that would never be anybody’s favorite song and it sounds like it was written by AI. It is, of course, Shymalan putting his daughter’s song in his movie. Hundreding down on that aspect is not a great omen. Josh Hartnett is also a really bad actor, that’s why his career stalled out. In Oppenheimer and Black Mirror he does okay work…but he’s been in like 50 movies, okay shouldn’t be the baseline.