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M. Night Shyamalan’s new twisty thriller,Trap, stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan and Hayley Mills. The story follows Cooper Adams, a doting father on the surface, who is actually a brutal serial killer. When he takes his teenage daughter to a concert, he is faced with the prospect of his dark secret being exposed, as the FBI have used the event as a honey trap to apprehend him.
Warner Bros. Picturesdistributed the movie, and it was released in theaters in the United States on May 12, 2025. It has grossed $25.3 million worldwide so far, but with the UK release arriving on August 9, this could be set to rise significantly. The reviews have been mixed from critics, but the fan reaction has been largely positive.
Trap
Starring
Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Jonathan Langdon, Alison Pill, Mark Bacolcol and Hayley Mills
Directed By
M. Night Shyamalan
Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) and his teenage daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), arrive at an arena concert, to see superstar singer, Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan). However, the excitement of the concert soon turns to paranoia when Cooper notices the unusually high law enforcement presence in and around the venue. Turns out, the FBI have got wind that a serial killer known as ‘The Butcher’ is in attendance at the concert, and the whole thing is an elaborate set-up to trap him. The twist is: Cooper is actually the serial killer the FBI is on the hunt for, and he currently has a victim, called Spencer (Mark Bacolcol), locked up in a basement, and is covertly keeping tabs on him from an app he’s using on his phone that links up to a live feed.
Cooper befriends an enthusiastic staff member at the venue, Jamie (Jonathan Langdon), and steals his ID card and uses it to gain access to a briefing room where the FBI are discussing the plan of action. He steals a police radio so he can keep up with the FBI’s plan, and hears a female voice, which he later learns is Dr Josephine Grant, (Hayley Mills), an FBI criminal profiler, who has already helped law enforcement bring down 10 other serial offenders.
Cooper attempts to escape from the FBIby suggesting to Riley that they try to sneak backstage to see how everything works, but Riley thinks it’s a bad idea. Cooper gets another idea when Riley talks about Lady Raven’s ‘Dreamer Girl.’ Basically, one lucky audience member gets to go up on stage and sing and dance with the singer, and gain backstage access. Cooper manages to convince Lady Raven’s handlers to pick Riley as the lucky winner, by claiming she’s just recovered from leukemia. This works, and Riley goes onstage with Lady Raven, as Cooper plans their escape after the show finishes.
How does Trap end?
The concert ends, and Cooper and Riley are backstage talking to Lady Raven. Turns out, the police are guarding the backstage exit as well, foiling Cooper’s alternate escape plan. He takes Lady Raven into a private room and tells her he’s ‘the butcher’, and if she doesn’t do as she’s told, he’ll kill Spencer. So, Cooper’s new plan is to escape with Riley via Lady Raven’s limousine. Once they’ve exited the venue, Lady Raven asks to come to Riley’s house, as an attempt to foil Cooper’s plan.
As Cooper, Riley and Lady Raven arrive at the family home, they are greeted by Cooper’s wife, Rachel (Alison Pill), and their son, Logan (Lochlan Miller), who are excited about meeting Lady Raven, unaware of everything else that’s going on. Lady Raven tells the family about the FBI’s plan to catch the serial killer in an attempt to stall for time. Turns out, the Butcher’s attendance at the concert was known because of a torn ticket found at a vacant house, after an anonymous report.
Lady Raven grabs Cooper’s phone to take a selfie of her and Riley, and quickly runs to the bathroom, and speaks to Spencer, and gains vital information that could lead to his whereabouts, and livestreams all her fans to see if they can help locate it. Cooper is hammering on the door to get his phone back, and eventually gets in using the master key, with his family now locked upstairs.
Cooper tries to drive off with Lady Raven in his wife’s car, but Cooper’s family have escaped, and they stand in his way. The police turn up, but Cooper escapes the house through a secret tunnel. After that, he dresses up as a member of the SWAT team and drives off in the limousine with Lady Raven. Cooper reveals himself to her, but Lady Raven flags down a group of fans to stop the limousine, while law enforcement catch up to the scene.
Cooper somehow gets away and returns home to confront Rachel. She tells him she had suspicions he was ‘the Butcher’, and admits to being the anonymous person who called the police, after leaving the ticket in the vacant house she’d discovered while following her husband. Cooper plans a murder suicide, but Rachel convinces him to share some leftover pie that she made to celebrate Riley’s good grades. However, Rachel has laced the pie with drugs, and he is tasered by the SWAT team, who are on standby.
Cooper is in handcuffs, and being escorted to a nearby police van, when he stops to pick up Riley’s bicycle and also hugs his daughter, after she runs towards him. In one of Shyamalan’sbest plot twists, Cooper is in the police van, and he picks his cuffs with a spoke he secretly took from the bicycle, and maniacally laughs to himself as the credits roll. In a short post credits scene, Jamie is at home watching the news as the bulletin announces the capture of ‘the Butcher’. He freaks out when he discovers it was Cooper, and vows to never speak to anyone at work ever again, as he shouts to his wife to tell her of the shocking news.
