M. Night Shyamalan movies are synonymous with third-act twists, so it seems strange that his new movie, Trap, has given the game away so early. Has it?
The new master of suspense got his big break in Hollywood with The Sixth Sense, a moody and haunting thriller about a young boy named Cole Sear who can see the dead and Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a psychologist sent to help him.
It’s one of the best horror movies of all time, boasting one of Bruce Willis’s greatest performances, an unsettling atmosphere, and some genuinely chilling scares. Not that anyone remembers any of that. Yes, the annals of pop-culture history aren’t particularly wide, so the sheer enormity of M. Night’s masterpiece (Shhh, Unbreakable fans) didn’t quite filter down into the public consciousness.
Instead, people only tend to talk about the ending, where it’s revealed Crowe is, in fact, himself a disembodied spirit or, as the public likes to say, ‘Bruce Willis was a ghost all along.’
This pop-culture bombshell made Shyamalan’s name in Hollywood — at one point, he was hailed as the next incarnation of the cinematic Dalai Lama Steven Spielberg (not that Spielberg is dead) — and he followed The Sixth Sense up with a string of hits, each of which ended on a shocking revelation.
For good and ill, M. Night’s brand became associated with these twists, all of which brings us to his new movie Trap, the trailer for which dropped yesterday. If you missed it, Trap tells the story of a doting father who takes his daughter to a concert but soon discovers it’s actually a trap (I see what M. Night did there) to catch a mysterious serial killer called The Butcher. Shock, horror, it turns out that the dad is the killer.
The Trap trailer was surprisingly divisive, with the main complaint being that M. Night had given the twist away in a teaser, spoiling the movie. I hate to be that guy, but these people really need to learn the difference between a twist and a premise. The reveal that the dad in Trap is a serial killer sets up the movie’s plot and gives it some stakes; it’s not the twist.
This isn’t just my opinion either; history shows us M. Night’s done this before. Watch the trailer for The Sixth Sense. It includes the line, “I see dead people.” was that a spoiler? No, it’s a magician’s trick, designed to make you believe you know where the film’s going, only for M. Night to pull a rabbit out of his hat in the third act to rapturous applause.
I’d bet my house (if I had one) everyone who’s complaining about the trailer spoiling everything has fallen for M. Night’s insidious trap (heeeey, I get it now), and that come the Trap release date, we’ll all be leaving the theater exclaiming that M. Night’s done it again… unless he makes the daughter the killer — that would be dreadful.
If you love films, you’ll want to check out our list of the best new movies streaming this month. We’ve also got separate articles bringing you everything you’d want to know about two of 2024’s most exciting horror movies, Longlegs and Maxxxine.
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