Summary
M. Night Shyamalan’sThe Sixth Sensenot only delivered one of the most epic twists in thehorrorgenre’s history, but it was one of the first movies that I remember that truly scared me as a kid. As someone who grew up in the 1990s and watched several movies starring Josh Hartnett, fromThe FacultytoHere on Earth, I was excited to watch one of his most recent releases.Harnett stars inTrapas Cooper Abbott, a dad who accompanies his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to Lady Raven’s (Saleka Shyamalan) concert.The potential twist is shared in the trailer: is Cooper the serial killer named The Butcher who everyone at the concert is searching for?
The concert setting was a unique idea for a horror movie and I looked forward to Harnett’s performance. However, I thinkthe ending ofTrapwas disappointing, and so was Cooper’s character. I don’t think he’s a well-crafted villain.
Why I Think Trap’s Villain Cooper Is Lackluster
I think Cooper is a dull horror movie villain becausehe’s exactly the kind of killer that horror fans have seen countless times before. ByTrap’s third act, audiences find out that Cooper’s mother mistreated him. These bad memories still haunt him, which is why he kept seeing her at the concert. While this is of course tragic to hear about, that’s a typical explanation for why someone would become a serial killer. I would have liked to learn more about Cooper’s background and current life. Sure, he’s a father of two kids, a wife to Rachel (Allison Pill), and a firefighter, but what else is going on with him?
Instead of beingan original horror movie villain, Cooper feels like everyone else. In real life, when someone commits a crime, neighbors tell reporters that they “seemed so nice” and “were just a regular person.” It feels like neighbors would say that about Cooper, but that doesn’t tell me enough about who he is.
I also think thatgiving away the twist in the trailer forTrapwas a bad idea.The marketing forThe Black Phonewas great, but the same thing can’t be said here. I went into the movie wondering if the real twist was that Cooper wasn’t The Butcher at all and someone else was hiding in the shadows all along. When that didn’t turn out to be the case, I hoped for a better ending than Cooper escaping from the police and clearly going to continue his killing spree. While it was a surprise that Rachel knew about Cooper’s secret identity all along, this wasn’t a big enough reveal to satisfy me, and I suspect other horror fans felt the same way.
I would also argue thatCooper does a poor job trying to escape from the concert venue and not get caught.His success rests on other characters not doing their jobs properly. Everyone, from the security guards to Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills), a profiler who works for the FBI, seems to have no idea how to find The Butcher. This is unrealistic and wouldn’t actually happen, makingTrapmuch less compellingthan other modern slasher movies. It never feels like Cooper has a master plan or is one step ahead of the authorities, even though the movie acts like he is.
What Did Horror Fans Think About M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap?
Horror fans didn’t enjoyTrap, either, and many shared their thoughts in aReddit thread. One Redditor agreed that the movie didn’t work because there should have been a second twist that there was another character who is The Butcher. The fan wrote:
“I kept expecting the Shyamalan twist to be that Cooper wasn’t the serial killer they were after.”
Redditor @BaronVonRuthless91 agreed thatit didn’t make sense that the FBI spent so much time working with Lady Raven to take Cooper down. They wrote:
“Was anyone else a bit distracted by how the FBI decided to let a random celebrity in on all their plans?”
Any of these criticisms might be less upsetting if Cooper was amore memorable and well-crafted villain. But since he’s not very exciting to watch, it makes the holes in the plot ofTrapseem more obvious.
Redditor @DRoseCantStop noted thatTrapgets less interesting when the setting changes from the concert to Cooper’s neighborhood.Although the concert scenes might not be perfect, at least it’s a different environment for a slasher story to take place in. The fan wrote:
“I would’ve been more impressed had they stayed at the concert until the last act. Film definitely lost some steam after the escape to suburbia, IMO.”
