“The Twist.” It’s something everyone needs to talk about the moment M. Night Shyamalan announces a new movie, and I can’t blame them. Ever since The Sixth Sense rocked the world 25 years ago, the man’s movies have continued to corkscrew into a massive truth that shakes the foundation of what you’ve seen throughout that very film. And yet the first trailer for his 2024 movie Trap seems to give away a major twist for Josh Hartnett’s character. Which, obviously, only leaves me needing to know more.
Let’s walk through this plot garden from Warner Bros.’ new trailer nice and slow, shall we? Mr. Hartnett, fresh on being a part of the Oppenheimer cast, is playing a young girl’s dear old dad. Taking her to a pop concert, in Philly of course, he looks like he’s having fun.
That is, until he notices the cops are surrounding the stadium. Apparently the concert is a trap for a local serial killer known as “The Butcher.” And that serial killer happens to be none other than…Josh Hartnett?! Ok Mr. Shyamalan, you’ve gained my curiosity and attention yet again.
Now obviously this morsel of information was released very deliberately. With M. Night Shyamalan being the twist master that he is, he wouldn’t just let any cat out of the bag. So if Trap is going to lure the audience in with Josh Hartnett already being outed as a serial killer, what’s being saved for the movie’s finale?
Is Hartnett’s daughter secretly in on it, if not the true Butcher? Could this entire scenario be a fever dream of an anxious father who’s dreading taking his kid to a noisy pop concert? Is Abigail somehow involved? These are all fun questions to be asked, especially when this footage looks to be throwing the audience off of the scent of the real twist.
I’m convinced that ever since Borat 2’s controversial Rudy Giuliani cameo was revealed before the movie was released, there’s a group of PR marketing wizards who have been dropping targeted spoilers. Think about it: everyone says that “the trailers give the movie away,” so why not lean into that notion?
If you tell the world Trap sees Josh Hartnett as a serial killer, and most people probably think we’ve been told too much, too soon. But if you’re an avid student of marketing, or even M. Night Shyamalan movies, you know there’s at least one other shoe waiting to drop. Not knowing that next big reveal has me locked in even tighter to see this movie, and I bet if Mr. Shyamalan is reading this statement right now, he’s having fun knowing that he’s inspired this reaction.
There’s another subtle sign that M. Night Shyamalan might be having fun with making Trap as twisted as possible. The man has apparently cast Hayley Mills, from Disney's original The Parent Trap, in an unknown role present in this movie. So he’s secured a Parent Trap star, to star in a movie where the whole point is to trap a parent. If that’s not a twist, then consider my name Mr. Glass.
As part of Warner Bros.’ “Summer of Shyamalan,” Trap’s release date is set to spring on August 9th. The other part of that event is, of course, is writer/director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s The Watchers, which will hit theaters on June 14th. And if you're looking to catch M. Night's most recent film on streaming, at the time of this publication you can watch Knock at the Cabin with a Prime Video subscription.
