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[Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers for Trap.]
Trap
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock, and M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, and Alison Pill
(Warner Bros. Pictures, 2024)
Feature Film (PG–13)
I have a vivid memory of some family friends talking excitedly about a film I was not allowed to watch. It was around the year 2000, I was probably seven or eight, and by that point had discovered my love of films — so, of course, I wanted to watch it. For several years thereafter, the movie in question retained a kind of mystique. I would catch glimpses of it on the DVD shelves in our homes, depicting a ghostly silhouette and a haunted-looking Bruce Willis swathed in heavy shadows. I finally watched The Sixth Sense (1999) when I was probably twelve or so, having slipped and dug out the DVD while I was home alone. In the years since, I have rewatched the film a handful of times, and with each viewing, it makes more sense as to why the film, despite being a psychological thriller with horror elements (rarely a favorite genre during awards season), was nominated for no less than six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The Sixth Sense established M. Night Shyamalan as a force to be reckoned with in turn-of-the-century Hollywood. His follow-up, Unbreakable (2000), is arguably the best original superhero flick ever made, and 2002’s Signs is a film I have used as part of a film unit in a college-level course for Bible students. Despite petering slightly out of the public consciousness for about a decade in the mid-2000s, Shyamalan experienced a kind of resurgence beginning in 2015 with the release of The Visit. Split (2016) and Glass (2019) function as sequels to Unbreakable, and their releases rounded out a critically acclaimed trilogy of superhero films that are still noticeably different from anything Disney or Warner Bros. have put out.
Now, Shyamalan has a new film in theaters. Trap (2024) is vintage Shyamalan, a psychological thriller that features a man named Cooper (Josh Hartnett) attending a concert with his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue). But, unlike The Sixth Sense, the “twist” comes at the very beginning, when Cooper is revealed to actually be an unhinged and dangerous serial killer dubbed “the Butcher.” What follows is an hour-and-a-half of mounting tension as Cooper discovers that the concert he is attending is also an elaborate sting operation designed to catch the Butcher, and he moves to outwit the brilliant FBI agent pursuing him, Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills), while trying to remain composed and rational in the presence of his daughter.
It’s All about Family. One of the most prominent themes in Shyamalan’s films makes its return in Trap. Critic Brian Truitt, writing for USA Today, picks up on this theme, titling his review, “Why M. Night Shyamalan’s Killer Thriller ‘Trap’ Is Really a Dad Movie.”1 He goes on to quote Shyamalan, who states that “it’s kind of a daddy-daughter rite of passage to go to a pop concert….it’s like the birthday party in ‘Signs,’ something that’s supposed to be very happy where something dark happens.”2
The quote Truitt provides reveals Shyamalan’s own awareness of the pervasiveness of his interrogation of the family unit across his body of work. Alexander Huls, writing for Movie Mezzanine, observes, “Family units are always initially broken in Shyamalan’s movies. Whether it’s because someone was lost…or not, they’re always cracked — divided, unable to talk to each other, understand each other, or form a functioning loving unit.”3 The complicated relationship between Cole (Haley Joel Osment) and his mother, Lynn (Toni Collette), in The Sixth Sense comes to mind, as does the dysfunctional Hess family in Signs, headed up by grieving patriarch Graham (Mel Gibson), which threatens to come apart at the seams after the death of Graham’s wife, Colleen (Patricia Kalember).
Shyamalan is himself father to three daughters — one of whom, an R&B artist, joins him in Trap as the pop icon Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan) and wrote a number of songs for the film’s soundtrack. Huls insightfully suggests that Shyamalan puts his own fear of failure in a familial context on the screen. “In each of his movies,” Huls observes, “there is a father (or father-figure) who is imperfect….They can be distant, struggling, wrapped up in their own personal feelings.”4
That same motif features prominently (and quite obviously) in the plot of the new film, Trap. But perhaps most interestingly, Trap also channels ideas similar to Shyamalan’s film Old (2021) by dealing with failing relationships between a husband and wife. Another one of the “twists” in Trap is that Rachel (Alison Pill), Cooper’s wife, came to suspect that her husband was the Butcher, and intentionally left clues that led the police to stage the sting operation at the concert. This all comes out in a long-winded conversation over what is framed as a sort of “final meal” together in the film’s third act, as they try to understand where things started to go wrong between them. This represents a further development of Shyamalan’s ideas about family, representing a fuller, more comprehensive approach to the subject as he explores what it means to be both a husband and a father in the film, and the way both secrets and unresolved trauma affect those relationship dynamics.
The Importance of Faith. While less noticeable in Trap, the role of faith is another prominent theme in Shyamalan’s films. According to an interview Shyamalan gave with Tom Power at CBC to promote his 2023 film, Knock at the Cabin, he intentionally keeps his work “grounded in a spiritual world view that holds a fundamental belief in the benevolence of the universe.”5 That is a little too vague of a statement for Christian apologists to really do much with. Does he mean that the universe was created basically “good,” or is he suggesting that the “universe” (whatever that may be) somehow has a willpower in and of itself? Some more context might help us get a better grasp on how Shyamalan sees reality.
According to the CBC Arts article that was a companion piece to the Power interview, Shyamalan was raised a Hindu and attended Catholic school for about a decade. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Shyamalan said he is “not a huge fan of organized religion — although I’m very fascinated by it.”6 Furthermore, he stated that “the universe wants you to grow….So you have to be careful how you’re interpreting the things that are happening to you. When something bad happens to us…it’s actually an accelerant for growth.”7
While his hermeneutic of the universe, if you will, is perhaps more thoughtful than the usual kind of inane fare we have come to expect from the Hollywood machine, these clarifying statements demonstrate something more akin to a kind of loose, New Age-flavored agnosticism than anything resembling orthodox Christian theology. For the classical apologists in the room, however, this is not to say that the Christian cannot find some kind of common ground with Shyamalan’s ideas about reality, however limited the real estate. This is especially true when analyzing his film Signs, which specifically puts faith on trial in the midst of an alien invasion. In his analysis of the film for Collider, Samuel Williamson notes that “more than any other film in his filmography, Signs shows that faith is not something that one attains and never questions again.”8
In Signs, Mel Gibson’s Graham Hess is a former Episcopalian who has his faith rocked by tragedy, a faith that he rediscovers throughout the events of the film, and which becomes a catalyst for the character’s personal growth. The crisis of faith Hess experiences is both a personal struggle and a reflection on how belief shapes human responses to existential threats. Shyamalan crafts a narrative where faith, or the lack thereof, directly affects the character’s ability to overcome adversity and maintain a stable relationship with his fragmenting family, and the film ends with Hess ultimately returning to the clergy with a renewed faith.
Without doubt, the cultural apologist can mine a trove of material from Signs. One of the most salient points to emerge when I taught the film to college students was that faith is hardly static but is instead a dynamic “journey” that involves grappling with doubts and uncertainties at various stages. Take the Old Testament character of Abraham, for example, whose own walk with Yahweh was fraught with doubt and missteps — consider how quickly his trust in Yahweh disintegrated when he reached Egypt (Genesis 12:10–20). Anyone who has been a Christian for any substantial length of time resonates with this idea, acknowledging the complexities (do not mistake complexity for complicatedness) of belief and the necessity of questioning as part of a robust faith.
A Vehicle for Conversations. More than many popular and “auteur” filmmakers today, Shyamalan’s films offer a plethora of unique opportunities for cultural apologists to engage friends and family members in meaningful conversations about faith. While Shyamalan’s personal views do not seem to align with any sort of orthodox Christian confession, his openness to what he calls “spirituality” and the exploration of faith in his narratives provide a worthwhile platform for discussion. His willingness to explore spiritual themes and ideas, even if through an unorthodox lens, allows for what a thinking Christian might call a “foot in the door” when engaging with those who, like Shyamalan himself, may be skeptical of organized religion but open to discussions about spirituality.
Another critical aspect of Shyamalan’s films that provides worthwhile fodder for discussion is the central role of family, which most frequently serves as his go-to backdrop for his exploration of fear and faith. Perhaps refreshingly in our current cultural climate, Shyamalan’s treatment of family often reflects an “old fashioned,” maybe even a “conservative,” point of view, emphasizing the importance of the nuclear family unit and the truly transformative power of love and forgiveness. In a culture where traditional family structures are often portrayed as outdated or problematic, Shyamalan’s films do put forth something of a significant counter-cultural narrative that affirms the family as a critical source of strength and support in times of crisis.
By and large, Shyamalan’s films leverage an openness to spiritual matters and existential questions, providing the apologist with ample opportunity to foster dialogues that explore subjects such as the transformative power of belief in something greater than oneself. Such themes allow for bridges to be built with audiences who may be receptive to exploring these ideas further within the framework of the Christian faith.
Cole Burgett is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and the Moody Bible Institute. He teaches classes in systematic theology and Bible exposition and writes extensively about theology and popular culture.
- Brian Truitt, “Why M. Night Shyamalan’s Killer Thriller ‘Trap’ Is Really a Dad Movie,” USA Today, August 2, 2024, https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2024/08/02/trap-movie-m-night-shyamalan/74584848007/.
- M. Night Shyamalan, quoted in Truitt, “Why M. Night Shyamalan’s Killer Thriller ‘Trap’ Is Really a Dad Movie.”
- Alexander Huls, “The Thematic Preoccupations of M. Night Shyamalan,” Movie Mezzanine, June 2, 2013, https://moviemezzanine.com/the-thematic-preoccupations-of-m-night-shyamalan/.
- Huls, “The Thematic Preoccupations of M. Night Shyamalan.”
- Vivian Rashotte, “M. Night Shyamalan May Have a Flair for Horror, but He Says He’s Just a ‘Silly, Fun-Loving Guy,’” CBC Arts, February 9, 2023, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/m-night-shyamalan-knock-at-the-cabin-q-tom-power-interview-1.6738372.
- M. Night Shyamalan, quoted in Rashotte, “M. Night Shyamalan May Have a Flair for Horror.”
- Shyamalan, quoted in Rashotte, “M. Night Shyamalan May Have a Flair for Horror.”
- Samuel Williamson, “Before ‘Knock at the Cabin,’ M. Night Shyamalan Explored Faith Differently,” Collider, February 15, 2023, https://collider.com/m-night-shyamalan-knock-at-the-cabin-signs/.
