B Movies Blog

Hello, Movie Mavens! Welcome back to the B Movies Blog. Today, we’re popping M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap into the ol’ VCR.

Y’all, we HAVE to talk about Trap. 

Well, more accurately, I have to talk about Trap. 

This movie is so unserious and so goofy, and I will have to demand that all of you see it immediately. 

We have Miss Hayley Mills, yes, Miss “Let’s Get Together, Yeah Yeah Yeah” HERSELF, playing a Dr. Loomis type. 

We have Josh Hartnett looking F I N E. 

Like, FINE. 

And babygirl even got highlights—gone are the days of his infamous haircut from Halloween H20. 

Also, M. Night, it’s just us girls here… 

How long did you have that poster of JH up on your wall?

Because the slightly unbuttoned flannel is telling. 

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I know I usually throw out a spoiler alert or disclaimer, but there’s not really anything to spoil?

The trailer is pretty straight forward, BUT if you want to keep the very silly shenanigans of Trap a secret, skip down to the paragraph that starts with “But, I have to be honest…”  

Trap follows Cooper (Josh Hartnett) as he and his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), attend the concert of her favorite artist, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). 

Before we go any further, I do want to give Saleka Shyamalan major props, as she has a BEAUTIFUL voice, and apparently wrote all of the songs for the film. 

I digress. 

I PROMISE I tried to find you a shirtless picture of JH from this movie, and I’m probably on several watchlists now 

Cooper is like if Dexter was saccharine sweet but the sugar coating was also made of Norman Bates’s mommy issues. 

Yes, you read that correctly. 

Throughout the film, Cooper does the GOOFIEST shit to evade capture. 

And, it works for the first two acts. 

However, the third act is where everything goes truly haywire. 

For example, at one point during the third act, a shirtless Cooper bodies a cop and proceeds to gouge his eyes out…all while being tased. 

Yes, I’ll give you a moment to picture it. 

There’s also a WILD scene where Lady Raven and Cooper partake in a weird roleplay, a la J.D. and his dad in Heathers, in an attempt by Lady Raven to get inside Cooper’s head. 

Yeah…

But, I have to be honest: I would watch an entire FRANCHISE with Cooper. 

Seriously. 

Something about the mustard yellow corduroy jacket is just really doing it for me, y’all

Much like Twisters, I loved how truly unserious this movie was. 

I personally don’t see a world where M. Night took this movie seriously, and I believe he’s on record as saying that he laughed when he finished this script? 

I also want to keep up this trend of 80s and 90s teen dream boys turning into baddies, a la Thanksgiving and Scream VI. 

Someone see if Tom Welling is available. 

Hell, he already did Lucifer and The Winchesters. 

Now, I would be doing all of you a disservice if I didn’t give a couple of sentences of a serious review. 

Is this a good movie? 

No, it’s not. 

But was I entertained from start to finish?

Abso-fucking-lutely. 

I was half expecting Hayley Mills to come on the walkie and say, “He seems to have brought his daughter, that means he’s a parent. This is a trap, a parent trap.” 

Like I said, I would sincerely watch an entire FRANCHISE with Cooper. 

Let Josh Hartnett run wild. 

Let his beautifully highlighted hair float in the wind while he pretends to be a disheveled barista and member of the S.W.A.T. team. 

Give me an entire series with this Oedipus complex-ridden man. 

Give me a reason to Google how tall Josh Hartnett is on a Wednesday night (he’s 6’3”, just an FYI). 

Give me more sheer silliness like Trap. 

And, M. Night, I hope you still kiss that Josh Hartnett poster every night. 

P.S. To all my eagle-eyed Movie Mavens, keep your eyes peeled for a billboard for The Watchers in the background at the beginning of the movie.