It was the arrival of M Night Shyamalan once again that allowed certain generations to support blindly this kind of return narrative as it specifically offered seduction. For instance, those of us whose youth coincided with the filmmaker’s flashy blockbusters would remember the buzz that surrounded each release where a person behind the camera became just as famous as the actors.
His descent with movies so terrible that a snarky fund actually once sprang up to send him back to film school gave us a chance to witness another human being completely losing all of their instincts collapse in real time and be devoured by arrogance; how Oscar-nominated The Sixth Sense maker ended his reign as an actor-turned-director with four straight Razzie nominees boasting an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 15%. At this point, he’d become faceless and reduced himself to some hack-for-hire who directed studio spectacle like The Last Airbender and After Earth; hence, new films by Shyamalan were received with less interest and more irritation.
However, he stepped back for a while and teamed up with Blumhouse, the horror hit factory responsible for the micro-budgeted found-footage horror The Visit in 2015 –a nasty little B-movie which earned him credit from audiences and reviewers alike. Then came the even bigger success Split – slightly less small but far more unpleasant– so suddenly those who had previously supported then abandoned Shyamalan were now happily on his side. But he lost everything almost immediately after gaining it when misguided Unbreakable trilogy entry Glass was followed up by clumsy body horror Old and unimpressive apocalyptic miss Knock at the Cabin. Clearly there was no more excitement left.
Nevertheless, despite these misfires it is still difficult not to get excited when you see his name in a trailer – partly because we know for sure he still has it in him somehow, but also because how many other directors of his ilk are still so committed to delivering original multiplex-aimed thrillers? His newest high-concept horror-thriller Trap for example has already generated more trailer-produced memes than most bigger summer movies. But the film has been kept away from critics by Warner Bros – a rarity for such a big movie and an alarming red flag for a filmmaker whose career is littered with them.
It’s not as bad as that hands-off strategy sounds but Trap is also a little bit of nothing: a lazy and boring late evening activity that cannot save Shyamalan from his downward spiral. He says that he came up with it by thinking, “what if The Silence of the Lambs happened at a pop concert?”, which is completely insane and includes Hartnett’s serial killer father who is involved in an operation while on his way to see his daughter’s favorite singer as a part of the entertainment. It is supposed to be suspenseful and anxiety-evoking, however, Trap lacks any tension whatsoever; it tries to make up for this lack with the idea of a movie that is fun enough pitch but has not been developed into real motion picture. (This feels like one long bloated episode of M Night Shyamalan Presents.) His dialogue is awkward in its Shyamalan-iest ways, comic relief isn’t funny at all, Hartnett’s “Butcher” character makes no sense as a killer and setups are rushed through or just weren’t quite thought out in order for logical inconsistencies to produce more questions than they provide answers for.
Trap takes things too far when using it all as a backdoor opportunity to spotlight his daughter Saleka who performs her own music onstage before turning into one of the last act’s principal characters, horribly so. Just months after trying to push his other kid Ishana onto audiences by producing her hated horror film The Watchers, now he wants Saleka be famous – equally unlikely based on what we have seen so far. Although it seems perfectly fine (though somewhat outdated) for someone of her reputation who sings songs appropriate for her age-group she appears awkward and out-of-place as an actress just like Sofia Coppola did when she began and ended her acting career with The Godfather III nepo-failure-at-theater level disaster. (In Trap this comeo-loving director plays his daughter’s uncle, who has a role in one single scene where he explains to the audience how nice and talented she is.)
A more believable background for Trap than “Hannibal Lecter at a convention” would be that its creation was motivated by Shyamalan’s desire to introduce his daughter into films. As a stand-alone thriller on what-could-have-been as far as Hannibal Lector terrorizing some of his obsessed fans is concerned, it falls flat. It doesn’t work as a high-concept B-movie, thanks largely to Shyamalan’s drab, washed-out direction: this type of thing demands someone like Brian De Palma with all his luridness – and the script just isn’t interested in the intricacies of the trap or coming up with any clever concepts or even worse cool twists. Some people will see these bits of utter lunacy as evidence of the brilliance of a film like this: Hayley Mills leading FBI operations; Kid Cudi’s strange cameo which seems quite camp; an Instagram Live call instead of dialing 911 by one character. But they are mostly lost within this occasionally uneventful movie given its premise. There is no cunning behind Trap; it assumes itself too smart without being so aware that it could have been much better if it were less foolish in general.
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