Trap

Trap is a 2024 American psychological thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, and Alison Pill, it follows a serial killer evading a police blockade while attending a concert with his daughter. The film premiered in New York City on July 24, 2024, and was theatrically released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 2, 2024. It received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed $25.3 million worldwide.
==Plot==
Cooper Adams, taking his teenage daughter, Riley, to pop star Lady Raven's concert as a reward for her good grades, notices the unusually high police presence around the concert venue. He learns from a vendor named Jamie that the FBI plans to catch a serial killer known as "the Butcher", having learned they will be in attendance. Cooper is revealed to be the Butcher himself, secretly checking footage on his phone of his latest captive victim, Spencer, in a basement. He steals Jamie's ID card and learns the passphrase that will identify him as an employee, using the card to gain access to a back room and steal a police radio.
Hearing a woman predicting his movements over the radio, Cooper sets off an explosion in a food stand's kitchen and uses the chaos to access the roof, where he learns from a police officer that the manhunt is led by Dr. Josephine Grant, an FBI profiler. Confused by Cooper's behavior, Riley asks him to stay with her. She talks about being chosen as Lady Raven's "Dreamer Girl", who gets to dance on stage with the singer and receives backstage access, which Cooper believes has the only exit not covered by the police. Cooper lies to Lady Raven's uncle that Riley recently recovered from leukemia, getting her selected to be the "Dreamer Girl".
However, after the concert ends, Cooper learns that police are also guarding the backstage exit. He privately reveals himself as the Butcher to Lady Raven, threatening to remotely kill Spencer if she does not escort him and Riley out in her limousine. She complies but asks to come to Riley's house, where she stalls for time by explaining the FBI operation to the family, unsettling Cooper by describing Grant's profile of him as someone with maternal issues and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She also explains that the police discovered details about the Butcher's attendance at the concert via a torn ticket receipt left in a vacant house that was reported anonymously.
Lady Raven steals Cooper's phone and locks herself in the bathroom. She gets details from Spencer about where he was taken and livestreams it to her fans, one of whom finds and rescues him. She outs Cooper to his wife, Rachel, and he locks his family upstairs while Lady Raven texts her driver to contact the police. Cooper attempts to drive off with Lady Raven, but Cooper's family distracts him long enough for her to escape. The police arrive and Cooper flees the house through a secret tunnel before disguising himself using a SWAT uniform and driving the limousine off with Lady Raven. After he reveals his identity she unlocks the window and draws a mob of fans to stop him so the FBI can catch up, but Cooper changes into a fresh set of civilian clothes and gets away. 
Cooper returns home and confronts Rachel. Rachel confesses that she had suspected that he was the Butcher and was the one who left the receipt in the vacant house for the police to find. Cooper decides to kill her and then himself, but Rachel persuades him to at least share some leftover pie made for his daughter. After Cooper admits his hatred for Rachel in causing him to miss seeing his children grow up, he realizes Rachel drugged the pie with pills from his tool bag, leading him to hallucinate his mother expressing pride in him for feeling a real emotion. The hallucination is actually Grant, impersonating Cooper's mother to calm him down, and he is tased by SWAT officers as he walks up to her. As he is led away, he stops to adjust Riley's bicycle and shares a tearful embrace with her before being loaded into a police van. As it drives away, Cooper starts to pick his cuffs with a bicycle spoke he secretly took, laughing to himself. In a mid-credits scene, Jamie learns of Cooper's identity while watching the news.
==Cast==
== Production ==
In October 2022, it was reported that Universal Pictures had set M. Night Shyamalan's next film after the release of Knock at the Cabin for an April 2024 release. The title of the film was revealed to be Trap in February 2023, as Shyamalan announced that he was entering a first-look deal with competing studio Warner Bros. Marc Bienstock and Ashwin Rajan produced the film with Shyamalan.
Principal photography was scheduled to begin in Cincinnati, Ohio in August 2023, where it would have received over $9 million in tax credits from the state to film there. Due to Shyamalan producing and financing his own films, the production was granted an interim agreement to be allowed to film during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Under the working title Good Grades, filming took place in Toronto from October 16 to December 8, 2023. The film's pop concert venue known as "Tanaka Arena" was filmed inside FirstOntario Centre with Rogers Centre used as the venue's exterior.
== Release ==
Trap is scheduled to be released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 9, 2024. It was previously scheduled to be released on August 2. It will be Shyamalan's first film with the studio since Lady in the Water (2006).
== External links ==
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== References ==
Category:2024 films
Category:Films Starring Saleka Shyamalan
Category:Films Starring Hayley Mills
Category:Films Starring Allison Pill
Category:Films Starring Marnie McPhail
Category:Films Starring Vanessa Smythe
Category:2024 thriller films
Category:American psychological thriller films
Category:Blinding Edge Pictures films
Category:Films directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Category:Films produced by M. Night Shyamalan
Category:Films with screenplays by M. Night Shyamalan
Category:Films set in concert halls
Category:Warner Bros. films
Category:Films Starring Josh Hartnett
Category:Films Starring Ariel Donoghue
Category:Films Starring Saleka Night Shyamalan
Category:Films Starring Alison Pill
Category:Films Starring Hayley Mills
Category:Films Starring Jonathan Langdon
Category:Films Starring Mark Bacolcol
Category:Films Starring Marnie McPhail
Category:Films Starring Kid Cudi
Category:Films Starring Russ
Category:Films Starring Marcia Bennett
Category:Films Starring Lochlan Miller
Category:Pages containing Mature Content