Trap (2024 film)

Plot Summary

Philadelphia firefighter Cooper Abbott takes his teenage daughter Riley to a concert by pop superstar Lady Raven as a reward for her good grades. Upon arrival at the arena, Cooper notices an unusually heavy police presence and learns from a vendor that the FBI has intelligence that a serial killer known as the Butcher will be in attendance. Cooper is secretly the Butcher, and he has a captive victim held in a basement. Using stolen credentials, he infiltrates restricted areas, steals a police radio and learns the operation is led by FBI profiler Dr. Josephine Grant.

In an attempt to secure an escape route, Cooper manipulates events so that Riley is chosen as Lady Raven's Dreamer Girl, granting her backstage access. After the concert, when Cooper realizes the police have also covered the backstage exit, he reveals his identity to Lady Raven and forces her to help him and Riley escape in her limousine. They return to the Abbott family home, where Lady Raven stalls by explaining the FBI's profile of the Butcher, which describes a man with maternal issues and obsessive compulsive disorder. She also reveals that the police found a torn ticket receipt left anonymously in a vacant house, which is how they knew the Butcher would be at the concert.

Lady Raven steals Cooper's phone, contacts his captive victim and livestreams the location to her fans, leading to the victim's rescue. She then reveals Cooper's secret to his wife Rachel. As Cooper tries to flee with Lady Raven, his family creates a distraction, allowing her to escape to her limousine. Police swarm the house, but Cooper uses a secret tunnel, disguises himself in a SWAT uniform and commandeers the limousine with Lady Raven inside. She later incites a mob of fans to swarm the vehicle, allowing the FBI to catch up, though Cooper changes clothes and escapes in the chaos.

Cooper returns home to confront Rachel, who confesses she suspected him, left evidence for the police and anonymously reported it. As Cooper decides to kill them both, Rachel drugs him with sedatives baked into a pie. Hallucinating, Cooper is captured by Agent Grant. As he is led to a police van, he shares an emotional embrace with Riley after adjusting her bicycle. In the van's back, Cooper reveals he secretly took a spoke from Riley's bike and uses it to unlock his handcuffs, laughing to himself. In a final scene, the vendor who helped Cooper earlier watches the news in shock, vowing never to talk to strangers at work again.

Development and Production

The film originated from conversations between M. Night Shyamalan and his daughter, singer-songwriter Saleka, about merging a concert experience with a cinematic narrative. Shyamalan was inspired by the way Prince created an album for the film Purple Rain. He initially considered having another filmmaker direct his idea for a concert-set thriller but changed his mind when he realized he could make the film with Saleka. The premise was partly inspired by Operation Flagship, a real 1985 sting where police arrested fugitives by luring them with offers of free NFL tickets. Shyamalan pitched the concept as The Silence of the Lambs set at a Taylor Swift concert, a reference to her popular Eras Tour.

Shyamalan wrote the screenplay in five and a half months, a personal record for him. As he wrote, Saleka composed fourteen songs designed to be diegetic, meaning they exist within the story and match the onscreen action. She cited influences ranging from Adele and Taylor Swift to Bollywood cinema, where music is integral to storytelling. Saleka described the final film as a grounded, American Shyamalan version of a Bollywood movie that is completely music-centric. Shyamalan produced the film with Marc Bienstock and Ashwin Rajan under his Blinding Edge Pictures banner.

Extensive pre-production included storyboarding and rehearsals. Josh Hartnett, who plays Cooper, avoided watching other media to make the character his own and researched psychopathy and serial killers. Shyamalan wrote the FBI profiler character, played by Hayley Mills, as a maternal figure to contrast Cooper's lack of empathy. The film was initially planned to be shot in a boxy 4:3 aspect ratio to create claustrophobia, but after discussions with cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, they changed to a wider 1.85:1 ratio and re-storyboarded the film. Ariel Donoghue, who plays Riley, attended school in between filming days during the production schedule.

Filming in Canada

Principal photography for Trap, conducted under the working title Good Grades, was initially scheduled for Cincinnati, Ohio in August 2023. The production relocated to Ontario, Canada, and was granted an interim agreement on September 18, 2023, allowing it to proceed during the SAG-AFTRA strike. Filming occurred from October 16 to December 8, 2023, across locations in Toronto and Hamilton. The interior of the pop concert venue, dubbed Tanaka Arena in the film, was shot at the TD Coliseum in Hamilton, a 20,000-seat arena that was undergoing renovations.

The production secured access to the Hamilton arena for two to three months. The exterior of the arena was portrayed by Toronto's Rogers Centre. The concert sequences were filmed like a real event, with choreographer Cora Kozaris and a videographer projecting live footage onto the stadium screens. Thousands of extras were used, who were given Saleka's music beforehand to sing along but were not informed of the film's plot. Hartnett recalled that some extras even consoled him, thinking he was nervous, unaware he was playing a serial killer.

The shoot involved complex logistics, with scenes filmed in a specific order: audience reactions with music, then Saleka's onstage performance, followed by dialogue scenes with a background beat track to maintain rhythm. Hartnett and Ariel Donoghue, who plays Riley, had to scream parts of their dialogue to be heard over the imagined concert noise. For intimate conversational scenes meant to simulate eye contact during a loud concert, Shyamalan used a system of one-way mirrors attached to the camera lens. The film was shot on 35mm film stock, with dailies sent to a lab in Los Angeles, causing a three-day wait for the crew to review footage.

Music and Soundtrack

The music for Trap is a central component of its narrative and atmosphere. Saleka Shyamalan, credited as Saleka Night, stars as the pop star Lady Raven and composed fourteen original songs for the film. These songs are performed diegetically during the concert sequences and are designed to mirror and enhance the unfolding thriller plot. The official soundtrack album, Lady Raven, was released by Columbia Records on August 2, 2024, concurrent with the film's theatrical release. The album features contributions from artists Kid Cudi and Russ, who both have cameo appearances in the film, as well as Amaarae.

Singles released from the album include Release, Save Me and Divine. The film's orchestral score was composed separately by Herdís Stefánsdóttir, creating a distinct musical layer from Saleka's pop songs. This separation allowed the score to build tension and suspense in the thriller segments while the pop songs energized the concert scenes. Saleka noted that her father was inspired to incorporate music so deeply into the film after visiting her on tour and by the integrated musical storytelling of Bollywood cinema. The production of the music was a family affair, with Saleka recording in a studio on the Shyamalan family property in Pennsylvania while her sister Ishana worked on mixing her own directorial debut, The Watchers, next door.

Release and Distribution

Trap was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 2, 2024. This marked Shyamalan's return to Warner Bros. after distributing Lady in the Water in 2006 and ended his five-film partnership with Universal Pictures that began with The Visit in 2015. The release date shifted several times, initially set for April 5, 2024, by Universal before Warner Bros. moved it to August 9 and then finally to August 2. The film had its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on July 24, 2024.

Notably, the film was not screened for critics prior to its general release. Marketing analysis by RelishMix described social media buzz as mixed positive, with awareness lower than some titles but interest levels comparable to the earlier 2024 film Longlegs. The film's social media content accumulated 259.2 million impressions across platforms. Trap was released on digital purchase and rental platforms on August 30, 2024. It arrived on the streaming service Max on October 25, 2024. Physical media releases on Blu ray, DVD and Ultra HD Blu ray followed on November 5, 2024. In March 2025, the film demonstrated strong post theatrical viewership, ranking second on Netflix in the United States for the week of March 10 to 16.

Box Office Performance

Trap was produced on a reported budget of $30 million. In its domestic opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film was projected to earn between $15 and $25 million from 3,181 theatres. It earned $6.6 million on its first day, including $2.2 million from Thursday night previews. The film debuted in third place with $15.5 million, behind the holdovers Deadpool & Wolverine and Twisters. In its second weekend, it earned $6.7 million, dropping to sixth place, and in its third, it made $3.4 million, falling to eighth.

By its fourth weekend, it had left the top ten with $1.7 million. Domestically, Trap grossed a total of $42.8 million. In international territories, it added another $39.9 million, bringing its worldwide box office total to $82.7 million. This result represented a financial return on its production investment, though it did not reach the blockbuster heights of some other summer releases. The film's performance was considered solid for a mid budget thriller from a director with a distinctive, often divisive style.

Critical and Audience Reception

Critical reception for Trap was mixed. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 56 percent of 250 critics' reviews were positive, with an average rating of 5.7 out of 10. The site's consensus stated the film was an arch thriller grounded by Josh Hartnett's performance, likely to ensnare those who appreciate its tongue in cheek style. On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film received a score of 52 out of 100 based on 46 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews. Audience scores were also middling, with CinemaScore reporting a grade of C+ from polling on opening night, and PostTrak giving it an overall positive score of 66 percent.

Critics were divided on the film's execution of its high concept premise. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian gave it two out of five stars, calling it a thriller that incorrectly thinks it's fiendishly smart. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair argued the film's sleek design peels away to reveal shoddy engineering. Conversely, some reviewers found elements to praise. Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club awarded a B+, stating the film may cook more purely and entertainingly than anything in Shyamalan's last decade. Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire gave it a B, highlighting Hartnett's dangerously charismatic performance. The film found notable admirers among other filmmakers, with Luca Guadagnino and Drew Hancock citing it among their favourite films of 2024, and French publication Cahiers du Cinéma placing it ninth on their annual top ten list.

Cast and Key Roles

• Josh Hartnett as Cooper Abbott / The Butcher: A Philadelphia firefighter and devoted father who is secretly a prolific serial killer.
• Ariel Donoghue as Riley Abbott: Cooper's intelligent and observant teenage daughter who is unaware of her father's double life.
• Saleka Night Shyamalan as Lady Raven: A global pop superstar whose concert becomes the setting for the FBI's trap.
• Hayley Mills as Dr. Josephine Grant: The FBI profiler leading the operation to capture the Butcher, written as a maternal figure.
• Alison Pill as Rachel Abbott: Cooper's wife, who grows suspicious of her husband's secret activities.
• The film also features cameo appearances by musicians Kid Cudi and Russ, who also contribute to the soundtrack.

Questions about Trap (2024 film)

Where was the movie Trap filmed?

Trap was filmed primarily in Ontario, Canada in late 2023. The interior concert scenes were shot at the TD Coliseum in Hamilton, which was undergoing renovations and stood in for the Tanaka Arena. The exterior of the arena was portrayed by Toronto's Rogers Centre. Other production took place in Toronto under the working title Good Grades from October to December 2023, after the production relocated from a planned shoot in Ohio and received an interim agreement to film during the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Who plays Lady Raven in Trap?

Lady Raven is played by Saleka Night Shyamalan, the daughter of director M. Night Shyamalan. Saleka is a singer-songwriter in real life, and she composed fourteen original songs for the film that her character performs during the concert sequences. This collaboration was a central inspiration for the film, stemming from conversations between father and daughter about merging a concert experience with a movie narrative. Saleka cited influences from Adele to Bollywood cinema for her performance.

What is the ending of Trap explained?

In the ending, Cooper returns home after escaping the police and confronts his wife Rachel, who confesses she suspected him and left evidence for the FBI. She drugs him with sedatives baked into a pie. Hallucinating, Cooper is captured by FBI agent Grant. As he is led away, he shares an emotional moment with his daughter Riley and secretly takes a spoke from her bicycle. In the back of the police van, he uses the spoke to pick the lock on his handcuffs and laughs, suggesting he may not be captured for long. The final scene shows a concert vendor realizing he helped the Butcher.

How did Trap perform at the box office?

Trap grossed a total of $82.7 million worldwide against a production budget of $30 million. In the United States and Canada, it earned $42.8 million, opening in third place with $15.5 million in its first weekend. Internationally, it added $39.9 million. While not a blockbuster, the film was considered a financial success, returning a profit on its investment. Its performance was solid for a mid budget thriller released in a competitive summer season.

What is the plot of the movie Trap?

The film follows Philadelphia firefighter Cooper Abbott, who takes his teenage daughter Riley to a pop concert by Lady Raven. Unbeknownst to Riley, Cooper is actually a serial killer known as the Butcher. They discover the concert is an elaborate FBI sting operation set up to capture him. The story unfolds as Cooper tries to evade the police while protecting his secret from his family.

Who directed and wrote the 2024 film Trap?

Trap was produced, written, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. He developed the film from his own original idea for a thriller set at a concert. Shyamalan wrote the screenplay in five and a half months, which was a personal record for him. He also produced the film with Marc Bienstock and Ashwin Rajan.

Sources: Wikipedia and current public reporting, checked by the Yadude Books desk. Last updated 2026-10-20.