Oh, the sound I just made. M. Night Shyamalan has been sorta-kinda mounting a comeback for almost a decade now, starting with 2015’s low-budget horror The Visit all the way through to last year’s end-of-the-world-thriller Knock at the Cabin. (Let’s just skip over Glass, all right? It still hurts.) As an old Shyamalan-head, I’ve mostly greeted the renaissance with respectable grunts, but there’s something about the premise of his latest, Trap, slated to hit theaters August 9.
Josh Hartnett plays a hot dad who’s taking his teenage daughter to see a vaguely Rihanna-esque superstar — played by Shyamalan’s own offspring Saleka (whose sister Ishana is also hitting theaters this summer with her own directorial debut) — when he notices cops massing at the venue. Naturally, one wonders: Terrorism? Aliens? A rival superstar mounting a siege? Not quite. As Hot Dad Hartnett learns from a merch-stand employee, the cops hope to capture a serial killer they believe is attending the concert. Turns out, Hot Dad Hartnett happens to have a nanny cam watching the victim in his basement. Did we forget this is a Shyamalan flick? Now that’s a twist. Will it be the only one? Hope not!