A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event. (from IMDB)

M. Night Shyamalan has often been considered a modern-day Alfred Hitchcock, but it's no secret that the quality of his productions are inconsistent. The cream of the crop for M. Night undoubtedly includes titles like Signs and The Sixth Sense, but plenty other titles - like The Last Airbender or After Earth - are considered among the most ridiculous or atrocious. Many of his entries along the way have been met with mixed reactions, including Lady in the Water, Split, Unbreakable, and The Village, but I've found most of them to be better than they're given credit for. While his titles are often creepy - if not entirely disturbing - psychological thrillers, they're usually kept within the boundaries of the PG-13 rating (with the exceptions being The Happening and 2023's Knock at the Cabin, which were both rated R). So, following his last PG-13 directorial outing, Old, M. Night returns with the PG-13 rated Trap.

The premise for Trap is certainly an interesting one, and while the reveal of who the serial killer is is revealed very early into the movie, the trailer was quick to give it away without hesitation. So, with it being relatively common knowledge now as to who the story's villain is, I will be talking about it openly from here on out. If you want to go into the movie blind, maybe skip this review altogether.

Being a seasoned concertgoer myself, the concept of a concert in an arena being used as a trap to catch a serial killer is an intriguing idea. The film has been largely criticized for not only being unrealistic in how people act or talk, but unrealistic in how events play out. While I can definitely see this to be problematic, it actually didn't ruin the experience much for me. (When, in other films, it certainly has.) The story centers on Josh Hartnett's Cooper, a blue collar kind of guy who is treating his daughter, Riley, to a concert of her favorite artist, Lady Raven - who is played by M. Night's real-life daughter, Saleka Shyamalan. It starts out as a cute little father/daughter outing, where Cooper seems to just be focused on rewarding his daughter for achieving good grades in school, and aspects of the event begin to feel like any real experience at an arena show. But, Cooper just can't help himself, and he excuses himself to go to the bathroom where he pulls out his cellphone to view a video of a helpless victim who is chained to a pole in an undisclosed basement. We - as well as Cooper - soon learn that the security at the event is abnormally over-the-top because the entire event is being set up in order to catch a serial killer named The Butcher. A serial killer that is also none other than... Cooper. Josh Hartnett is actually fantastic in the role, playing this oddly likeable normal kinda guy who has a violent and disgusting alter ego. Cooper soon enters fight-or-flight mode to try to find a way of escape from the venue, and we see Hartnett juggle a down-to-earth father figure and a completely unhinged psychopath expertly.

I've never seen Hartnett as a creepy guy. Granted, I admittedly haven't seen too many of his films, with maybe the last one being Hollywood Homicide (with Harrison Ford)? But I just have never seen the guy as a creep. Trap will change that entirely for viewers. I wrestled with the fact that I was finding myself hoping Cooper can escape, yet horrified by the things he'd allegedly done. It was hard to believe this guy could be a brutal murderer, but Hartnett gives glimpses of his alter ego throughout his increasing panic to get out of the stadium. By the time we see him for the monster he really is, the rooting for him ceases, but I still found it a bit icky to be hoping he'd get away and out of the arena.

I can see how viewers and critics would call the movie far-fetched. From the exposition-spewing overtly friendly t-shirt vendor guy, to the plan that works-too-perfectly to get close to the show's headliner later in the film, to pretty much everything that unfolds in the third act, you really have to suspend disbelief to enjoy the movie. That last act also includes some of the most disturbing of the content in the film, and it kind of devolves into a more traditional psycho-murderer horror flick. Thankfully, for people like this reviewer who can't stomach graphic violence, there's very little that is shown in the movie, and it allows the film to fall in line with most of M. Night's other PG-13 films.

Another major criticism the movie has been receiving is the performance of M. Night's daughter, Saleka Shyamalan. She sort of delivers that wooden kind of performance you've come to expect from an M. Night movie, but, to be fair, she does tend to downplay the expected emotion for her role. (She isn't going to win any awards for this role, let's just say that. ...Unless it's a Razzie.) Still, blaringly obvious nepotism aside, Saleka hardly sinks the ship either. Her performances on stage, while not exactly up to the scale or quality of the huge stars currently packing houses in today's music scene, work for the film, even if it feels like a blatant commercial for Saleka's own music. (For example, no one buys tickets to an M. Night movie and expects to see a pop concert, but he tends to show much too much of the performances regardless.) So many things happen with the concert's superstar that don't feel realistic at all - including how she is handled by security and such. It borders on absolutely silly, but I decided to roll with it anyway to see where Shyamalan was going with it.

The content is pretty intense despite being seldom graphic in nature. Aside from hearing violent descriptions of some of the things that The Butcher reportedly did, we do see a photograph of a snowy field with several white tarps covering various remnants of a particular murder scene. When noticing a hand sticking out from under one of the tarps, it becomes evident that each tarp is covering the pieces of a mutilated human body. Later, a woman is burned by hot oil from a deep fryer and we briefly see her red, scarred and burned face and hands as a result. Finally, later in the film, a man tackles another man who is in tactical gear and digs both of his thumbs into the victim's eye sockets as he screams in pain. Considering how brutal the subject matter involving the killer is, it's surprising that M. Night doesn't get more visually graphic or grotesque, but the thematic material is still pretty disturbing. He delves a little bit into the pysche and psychology behind what could make a man become a serial killer, and that is certainly a mix of interesting and disturbing. However, it's kept relatively simple and surface, without it digging down very far (unlike one of his other movies like, say, Split). Hartnett delivers such an intriguing performance, though - in spite of how ridiculous some of the events of the movie might be - and it's his presence that makes the movie worth a watch. Aside from all that, there is some profanity in the movie, albeit infrequent. Cooper uses the "F" word unexpectedly in one scene when trying to intimidate someone, while there are a couple uses of the "S" word and a whole lot of uses of "Oh my G-d" - mostly from fangirls at the concert.

Even at their best, M. Night Shyamalan movies are an acquired taste. Where does Trap fall in his directorial filmography? Probably somewhere around the middle or at least the "bottom" of the middle, but it's got a few things about it - like Hartnett's performance - that make it more engrossing to watch. (I must say, though, despite the fact that it's under 2 hours long, it feels too long at times, and as if the movie could have ended a couple times before it finally does.) Regardless of how rough the visual content gets on just a couple occasions, it's a wholly disturbing premise that makes the villain the protagonist, which is an unusual - or at least uncommon - concept. If you're into M. Night movies already, Trap is par for the course. But if you like to avoid psychological thrillers or dismal movies that, well, make the killer the central character, you're going to want to avoid falling into this Trap.

(Oh, if you do see the movie, stick around for a semi-mid-credit scene that revisits a side character from the movie in a pretty comical way, ending the intense movie on a surprisingly lighter note.)