What is Trap about?
Through Trap, M. Night touches on a variety of topics. The biggest has to do with the contrast between someone’s public persona and their private life. Cooper is not who he pretends to be. While Lady Raven is even more impressive offstage than she is on. The impact parents have on children is a big one. And “weak links” in systems is an important motif.
Cast
- Cooper – Josh Hartnett
- Riley – Ariel Donoghue
- Rachel – Alison Pill
- Lady Raven – Saleka Shyamalan
- Dr. Josephine Grant – Hayley Mills
- Jamie – Jonathan Langdon
- Thinker – Kid Cudi
- Parker Wayne – Russ
- Written by – M. Night Shyamalan
- Directed by – M. Night Shyamalan
How to understand Trap
Limited perspective
One of the cool things M. Night does is limit audience perspective in two ways.
First: We start in media res. Meaning, in the middle of the story. The opposite is abo ovo, which means “from the egg”, as in the beginning. For example, in Seven, we meet the characters then John Doe’s spree starts. So we witness things from the egg. Compare that to Saw. It begins with two characters waking up within a Jigsaw puzzle. Things have already happened and we as viewers are trying to catch up. Trap is more like Saw than Seven. We don’t see the rise of the Butcher. The Butcher’s already a thing. We don’t see the formation of the plan to catch him, only its execution. Starting in media res means for most of Trap we have to actively pick up on context clues and piece together the world of the film.
Second: The first half of Trap is primarily from Cooper’s perspective. Most information we find out at the same time he does. Usually, viewers enjoy more omniscient perspectives, jumping from plot beat to plot beat. In a movie like Deadpool & Wolverine, we aren’t only with Deadpool or only with Wolverine. Sometimes we’re with Paradox. Or Cassandra Nova. In The Dark Knight, we’re mostly with Batman. But sometimes the perspective jumps to Commissioner Gordon. Joker. Rachel. Harvey Dent.
M. Night mostly restricts us to Cooper but does break away sometimes, like when he shows the FBI’s arrival to the stadium. Or the fight between Jody and her mom because Riley got to go on stage. But Trap, in that first hour, jumps back to Cooper very quickly. And almost every piece of information flows through him. Like we don’t cut to Dr. Grant informing the team about Cooper’s profile. Instead, we hear her inform the team because Cooper’s listening on a stolen radio.
Why we kind of root for Cooper to escape the stadium
Earlier in 2024, much ado was made about the horror film In a Violent Nature, because it followed the monster rather than the human characters. The first hour of Trap is essentially the same exercise. And it creates dynamic tension because movies are so often from a heroic perspective. Meaning we’ve been trained to relate to and root for whoever our perspective character because the perspective character is, 99.99% of the time, good (or at least on a path to redemption). When that character’s actually the villain, we have to pushback against our inclinations.
For example, in Casino Royale, all James Bond knows is that someone sent a text message from outside the front entrance of a resort and the exact time. So he flies to the resort, creates a diversion, accesses the security footage, and sees on video the person who sent the text message. That’s exciting for viewers because the movie established a problem and then we got to watch a capable protagonist find a solution.
Trap establishes Cooper’s problem. The FBI has laid a trap for him and you have a profiler predicting his every move. It’s cat and mouse. And Cooper solves each and every problem, just like James Bond. It’s exciting. Viewers enjoy that. Except Cooper isn’t James Bond. He’s the villain we hope Bond brings down. Yet here we are, kind of rooting for him, satisfied that he figured out how to get away.
What further complicates this isn’t just the limited perspective but Cooper being (seemingly) a genuinely good dad and how likable Riley is. And because we start in media res, we also don’t have a strong understanding of what Cooper’s done as the Butcher. Obviously he’s bad enough that the FBI would go to all this trouble to capture him. And we see he has someone locked in a basement. But viewers have, during the concert, a degree of innocence when it comes to Cooper. He lets Jamie, the t-shirt vendor, go. How bad can he be?
Cooper threatens Lady Raven and the mask comes off
While Cooper technically wins by escaping the stadium, he has to take the mask off to do so. The profiler backs him into such a corner that it forces Cooper to force Lady Raven to transport him and Riley out of the stadium in her limo. He goes from pretending to be Dad of the Year to full-on Butcher. His eyes get crazy. He explains what’s going on with Spencer and threatens to end him if Lady Raven doesn’t help. The whole shift in demeanor signals to the viewer that whatever degree of likability Cooper had, mostly because he was our perspective character, is over. We finally see the monster. The rest of the movie is the continued unraveling of Cooper and the emergence of the Butcher. Which feels akin to Split, where that film served as a kind of origin story for James McAvoy’s character’s “Beast” persona.A persona that plays a key role in the follow-up film, Glass. I imagine we’ll see something similar with at least one Trap sequel, if not more.
Lady Raven the performer versus Lady Raven the person
I really kind of love Trap. But I will say that the first hour felt pretty thematically empty. It was a lot of enjoyable story, character development, and cinematography, but not much in the way of meaning. Then Lady Raven becomes our perspective character and suddenly there’s a lot more going on.
Quite often, people ask why celebrities don’t do more for the world. They have money, influence, power. If Taylor Swift asked people to donate $1 to a cause, how much money would her fans raise? In 2023, Taylor posted for her fans to register to vote. Immediately, 35,000 did. NPR reports “The number of 18-year-olds registered was more than double 2022.” That was from a single, random post.
If every celebrity donated $1,000 to a cause, chump change for them, how much money would they raise? To be fair, many do give. It’s just not in splashy ways that make headlines. John Cena has made over 650 Make-A-Wish visits. People reports that “In the 42 years since the foundation began, no other figure has granted more than 200 wishes.” Dolly Parton has spent decades helping people. Foundations, scholarships, donations, wildlife preservations, and aid to those affected by natural disasters.
When Cooper coerces Lady Raven, he does so by leveraging the life of Spencer, the victim he has chained in a basement. Lady Raven could simply do as Cooper instructs and drive him and Riley out of the stadium then drop them off at a corner and be done. That would be the selfish, self-preserving thing to do.
But Lady Raven makes a far nobler choice. She asks to drive Riley and Cooper all the way home, in order to not only gain as much information as possible but think of a way she can save Spencer. It’s daring. And is an illuminating moment that actually adds a new layer to Trap’s first hour.
As much as we focus on Cooper’s dilemma, the first hour is about Lady Raven’s concert. And there are a number of moments where Lady Raven, the performer, speaks to the audience. She says all the right things. All the positive, empowering things you’d expect a celebrity of her class to say. But does she mean it? Who is she really? It seems like she’ll only ever be this figure on the stage that we witness from a distance. But then M. Night brings her into the movie as a person. Someone who has to make a choice—save herself or save someone else? And Lady Raven seems to not even hesitate in doing what she believes to be the right thing. Even if that means potentially making herself a victim.
M. Night isn’t making a grand statement on celebrity. But he does explore the dichotomy through Lady Raven.
Mask on, mask off
We know Cooper is also the Butcher. That introduces the concept of dual identities. But it’s a single data point. You need a bit more for it to become a full-on theme. And that’s what makes the time with Lady Raven so thematically important. She parallels Cooper. At the concert, we see both of them performing through their public personas. Afterwards, both switch to their private identities. Cooper reveals he’s actually this horrendous monster. While Lady Raven makes bold, brave choices that probably surprise a lot of people who might expect a celebrity to be a lot more selfish. She’s just as lovely and caring off the stage as she was on it. More so, actually.
One way to check themes like this is to look at side characters. Kid Cudi’s Thinker is someone who is all smiles while performing. Backstage? He’s rude, demanding, temperamental. The “never meet your heroes” kind of celebrity. Russ’s Parker Wayne is more generic and neutral. Seeing both before we “meet” Lady Raven primes us to think Lady Raven might be as superficial or even disappointing. Except she’s not. She’s heroic.
What’s cool is how this lines up with the film’s overall structure. Cooper starts in the crowd, with the crowd, as someone beholding the show. But he ends up behind the scenes. Viewers go through the same experience. At the beginning, we witness Cooper at the peak of his performance as a regular person. And we end “behind the scenes,” with a better understanding of what made him the Butcher, why he was that way, and how he went about it.
I love when form and function line up like this. I think it’s one of the coolest and most difficult things for a writer to pull off, no matter the medium. Another example is The Lion King. Its main theme is “the circle of life” so the film starts with the birth of Simba then ends with the birth of Simba’s child and everything that happens in-between ties back to this overall idea of the relationship between life and death. Jurassic Park does this too. Its main concern is discussing how chaos will always manifest in complex systems because humans can’t possibly predict every action and every reaction. So Jurassic Park begins rather calmly, introduces a complex system, then unleashes chaos on that system, ultimately demonstrating how ill-equipped capitalism is to react and why corporations should, as science continues to make more and more things possible, act with humility and restraint.
Matching form and function doesn’t mean a movie will be a masterpiece or anything. But it isn’t easy to pull off and doesn’t happen all that often. So regardless of whether you liked Trap or not, you will hopefully respect this part of M. Night’s craftsmanship.
Honestly, you could probably make an argument for reading Trap as a commentary on the entertainment industry. In an interview, Hartnett said, “There are a lot of CEOs, politicians, people in our business… a lot of people who are at the top. They don’t mind stepping over people or doing horrible things to get where they’re going, and not having any empathy is a pretty big sign of being a psychopath. Whether or not you’re murdering people, I’ve met people like this, you know what I mean? So it was easy to take it all a step further, make it a little bolder, and make his cover so intense.”
The power of celebrity and fandom, of crowdsourcing
I’m not sure how developed this theme is, but it’s worth pointing out that crowdsourcing plays a big role in the movie. This is most obvious with Lady Raven. She doesn’t single-handedly save Spencer. Rather, she goes live on Instagram and relies on the collective knowledge of her massive fanbase to turn “broken lion statue” and “blue door” into actionable information. Her fans save Spencer. Likewise, when Cooper manages to evade the FBI and kidnap Lady Raven by pretending to be her limousine driver, she probably would have been cooked if not for briefly rolling down the window and calling for help. People recognized her so surrounded the limo and wouldn’t let Cooper drive away. The FBI arrives moments later.
Weak links in a system
When you think back to the concert, the FBI needed the buy-in of not only its agents and the local police but also the stadium personnel and Lady Raven and her team. If everyone had followed Dr. Grant’s guidelines, Cooper wouldn’t have escaped. But what happens? Jamie gives away information because he thought Cooper was just a good dad. Had Jamie not told Cooper the code word, Cooper would have failed the check on the roof. Dr. Grant also said to let no one go backstage. Then people from Lady Raven’s team let Cooper backstage because they all assume he’s too nice to be the Butcher.
If everyone had followed the guidelines to a tee, they catch Cooper. But every system has a weak link. Even Cooper’s. He thought he was doing everything he needed to keep his life as Cooper separate from his life as the Butcher. But he didn’t account for the suspicions of Rachel. Initially, she never would have thought her husband to be a serial killer. But she did think he was cheating, or had something going on, otherwise why would he leave at night and be gone at weird times. And as meticulous as he was, he didn’t account for the smell of cleaning supplies on his person. Such little things gave him away; the same way the small leaks at the stadium allowed Cooper to avoid Grant’s trap. It’s a cool parallel. He initially exploits the weak links for his own benefit, only to realize he has them himself.
This comes in at the very end, too. Grant and the arresting officers let Cooper pick up a bike knocked over in the yard. They feel confident because he’s cuffed, chained, and surrounded. What harm could there be in letting him have this one last thing? He’s lost. They’ve won. Except a few minutes later, in the back of the police van, he removes a broken spoke from his sleeve and picks his handcuffs. So even Dr. Grant got lazy at the end. That moment of mercy will lead to, the ending implies, Cooper’s escape.
Cooper’s childhood trauma
The first hint of Cooper’s mommy issues is when he sees an older woman in the men’s bathroom at the concert. We eventually realize it’s a vision of his mom. Later, Lady Raven, desperate to escape from Cooper’s clutches, pretends to be Cooper’s mom, and scolds him.
- LR: Cooper, you listen to me now. Enough of this foolishness. You’re going to sit in your seat. You’re going to be punished.
- C: Come on. I know what you’re doing.
- LR: Did I tell you you could talk back to me, Cooper?!
- C: That profiler told you things.
- LR: You never listen when you’re told.
- C: I know what you’re doing.
- LR: There’s a way to be a good boy, Cooper. There’s a way to turn yourself good.
- C: Well that’s just not true.
- LR: You can choose to be good, Cooper. And make everyone proud. The way you did when you were little, you sometimes did good things.
- C: I used to be punished. A lot.
- LR: I didn’t know how else to deal with you.
- C: I’ll just do this one last one. And then I’ll kill myself. It’s the only way to stop the monster.
- LR: Stop telling stories! Monsters aren’t real.
- C: Yes they are. Mom.
And, at the end, Dr. Grant also pretends to be Cooper’s mom. This is her dialogue.
- G: It’s amazing you are angry, son.
- C: I thought I was pretending. But I wasn’t.
- G: Not all of you is a monster.
- C: Not all.
- G: You’re my son. And this is who you are. End of Story. It’s good it’s over. It’s good you’re stopping the monster. Let me see you one last time. I accept you. Come closer.
What we get from this is that Cooper had behavioral issues as a child. And that his mom was harsh to him, probably distant from him, because of it. Which only reinforced his behavioral issues. He was the one punished, so now he punishes. Attention-seeking behavior in children is a common byproduct of parental distance and often one of the main motivations for serial killers.
I wouldn’t say exploration of Cooper’s trauma rises to the level of theme. Rather, it’s characterization and motivation. The thematic implications happen when you juxtapose Cooper’s mom’s impact on him with the impact the film’s events will have on Riley. Her entire world has been turned upside down. She thought she was having the best day of her life, made possible by this dad she loved. Only to find out he’s the Butcher. How will that affect her? Will she use it as motivation to be a good person? Or will she drown in negative feelings? Or will her psyche fracture trying to come to terms with it all?
Cooper’s Exhibit A of how parents affect children. That sets up the question of what will happen to Riley? We don’t get an answer in this movie, but it seems like something M. Night will probably explore in a sequel.
There we go!
Hopefully this helps you have a better understanding of Trap. We’ll move on to some more general questions and conversations.
What was the Shyamalan twist?
In this case, the twist is simply that Rachel set Cooper up. It’s not huge like the Sixth Sense, where it changes everything we know about the movie. It’s not like Cooper is actually a 500 year old vampire lord. Or that the entire movie was a Steam game played by some kid on summer vacation. It’s a twist that’s mostly relevant for the character. Cooper thought he was the one in charge. But then it turns out his own wife was the one who kicked this whole thing off. That’s more meaningful for the character than it is for the viewer. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just not the huge “It’s actually the trees” twist that people have come to expect from M. Night Shyamalan. Old didn’t really have a big twist. And A Knock at the Cabin wasn’t so much a twist as a confirmation. So it seems M. Night’s purposefully toned down the whole “big twist” practice.
For good reason, too. An article on FandomWire, before Trap came out, actually included this paragraph: If the daughter is a vampire or a similar monster, her father, played by Josh Hartnett, could just be helping her to survive by doing the killings. Or it could be the daughter who is the butcher, and the father is just an accomplice, who is someone who will do anything for their kid…. Given Shyamalan’s penchant for the supernatural and the horror genre, this is a pretty good theory to move with.
Like…that’s the kind of nonsense people come up with because they expect every M. Night movie to have this insane paradigm change. So I get why he would want to reset expectations. What’s funny is that I made the “500 year old vampire lord” joke in the first paragraph before I read the FandomWire article. Sigh.
Personally, the twist for me was when Lady Raven said she wanted to go to Cooper’s house. At that point, I had no idea where the movie was going to go next and I was so excited.
Why didn’t Rachel just go to the police?
She kind of explains this. She didn’t know for certain he was the Butcher. She just had a feeling but no real evidence and was scared. By submitting the anonymous tip and leaving the ticket, it was a “Let God take the wheel” moment. If Cooper made it home from the concert, she could chalk everything up to paranoia. If he was the Butcher, then she helped bring him down.
Most people aren’t faced with such a choice. But we do similar things all the time. For example, someone might start having headaches. And they just chalk it up to stress and not getting enough sleep and hope it will go away. They do that because going to the doctor and having tests done is scary. What if they find something? It’s a Catch-22. Because if you don’t go, they can’t tell you something is wrong and you can pretend everything is okay. But then if something is wrong, it will only get worse. If you do go, they can tell you something is wrong and you can’t pretend everything is okay. Maybe they can fix it. Or maybe it will only get worse. So you choose to ignore it.
People do that when it comes to health, their relationships, career, etc. We know we should confront something directly. Except we don’t. Because we’re scared of the truth. That’s the real-world foundation. Trap, like most movies, reframes that through a dramatic, hyperbolic situation.
How did Cooper break the spoke without anyone noticing?
If you watch the scene closely, you can actually see the moment he flexes to break it. He kneels in such a way that his leg blocks his hand from the officers behind him and to the side. And none are in front.
Is Trap in the same world as Unbreakable, Split, and Glass?
As far as I could tell, no. But there was something about it that felt pretty Split-y. Maybe it’s just talk of Cooper’s monster sounding like a parallel to Kevin’s Beast personality. The reaction to Glass was pretty negative and Shyamalan didn’t take it all that well. IndieWire had an article called “M. Night Shyamalan Says Bad Reviews of ‘Glass’ Made Him Cry”. So I could imagine him not wanting to return to that universe. To leave that alone and start something fresh and new.
Will we get a Trap sequel?
I would be shocked, like absolutely shocked if we didn’t. Personally, I see Cooper as M. Night’s Michael Myers. And think there’s a genuine opportunity to have this be the origin of a Michael-like figure. That’s kind of where I hope this goes. Just becomes more and more supernatural with each film, until Cooper’s lost all of his humanity and becomes this entity that seems impossible to actually defeat because he’s so terrifyingly capable.
