Film Review

Trap (2024) — self-reflexive thriller is Shyamalan’s most audacious in years

A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realise they’ve entered the centre of a dark and sinister event.

The poster for the new thriller Trap features the words ‘A New M. Night Shyamalan Experience’ in large letters above the title. It’s telling. For several years in the 2010s, his name was almost impossible to spot on the posters for films he made. The critical disappointment of his eco-horror The Happening (2008) led to cynical marketing teams all but scrubbing his name from the posters for his next two films. They were both family-friendly entries with large budgets and little indication as to who made them.

But after the success of the director’s latest string of films, which saw a return to the imaginative genre fare that made him a household name, his name is unmissable once again. These aren’t just films that he has joined as a director, these are Shyamalan experiences — cleverly engineered thrillers designed to catch the viewer in the web of a modern master.