Trap Is The Funniest M. Night Shyamalan Movie Yet (And We’re Torn)

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for “Trap.”

There’s a popular saying among genre fans that horror and comedy are, essentially, two sides of the same coin. It takes very similar storytelling instincts in order to pull off an effective scare as it does to deliver a genuine laugh: It’s all about setups, payoffs, and messing with our expectations. To that end, there’s nobody in the business who’s proven themselves better suited to that task over the last 25 years than M. Night Shyamalan. With “Trap” (which I reviewed for /Film here), the filmmaker may have found the perfect vehicle to kill these two birds with one stone.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock since the turn of the century, you likely know exactly the kind of tone to expect from a Shyamalan film. Intentionally stilted dialogue, slightly off-kilter performances, and a recurring tendency to follow up moments of terror with jarring humor (or vice versa) are all hallmarks of the writer/director’s approach. In “Trap,” that unique alchemy is taken to another level entirely. With its main hook about a serial killer (Josh Hartnett’s Cooper) taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert and instead finding himself in the middle of a manhunt designed to capture him specifically, it will likely call to mind his more stripped-down and claustrophobic efforts like “The Sixth Sense” or “Split.” But the ones that it shares much more DNA with might surprise you.

Ultimately, “Trap” feels like it was made especially for fans of “Signs,” “The Visit,” and “Old,” the three Shyamalan flicks that best epitomize his pivot towards horror comedies. The end result is arguably his funniest movie yet — and, yeah, audiences are going to feel divided about this.

Whenever movies include elements that feel messy, ambiguous, or merely left as subtext, some viewers tend to dismiss those as some sort of a mistake on the part of the filmmakers. One example that immediately leaps to mind is, of all things, a scene from “Kong: Skull Island.” In one sequence that goes viral about once every six months, Shea Whigham’s character prepares to heroically sacrifice himself to one of the island’s super-sized monsters and go out in a blaze of glory to save the rest of his squad … only to immediately get tail-slapped into the side of a cliff and explode, rendering his death utterly useless. And without fail, people will paint this as “unintentionally funny” — never mind that this is an awfully on-the-nose metaphor for the pointless deaths caused by the Vietnam War and couldn’t possibly be more of an intentional choice.

So what does this have to do with “Trap”? Well, Shyamalan oftentimes receives similar criticisms from some who simply can’t (or won’t) accept that, sometimes, movies are meant to make us feel a little uncomfortable. The divisive director said as much in a recent interview with /Film, when he explained:

“You know, I’ve always had this penchant for doing dark humor … ‘Signs’ was probably one that I added the most humor up to that point. But it’s my instinct now and from ‘The Visit’ on, I’ve added it into everything. And I think nervous laughter is a really fun thing. And because when we go see the movies in the theater together, it’s so joyous to hear everybody laughing and then that turns into gasps and that turns into screams and applause, hopefully.”

In many ways, “Trap” feels like the pinnacle of this mindset.

“Trap” is many things at once: a tense cat-and-mouse game in the beginning, a psychological thriller by the end, and, yes, a horror comedy at its heart. The mere existence of Marnie McPhail-Diamond’s character, the obnoxious mother of one of Riley’s friends, ought to be enough to clue viewers into exactly what kind of tone Shyamalan is trying to set here. While preoccupied by the prospect of somehow finding a way out of this concert under the FBI’s nose, Cooper also has to deal with repeated run-ins with this mom trying way too hard to smooth over some typical teen drama between Riley and her friend Jody. The absurdity of it all, particularly when things get a little heated between the parents and attracts the unwanted attention of nearby patrolmen, makes for some of the funniest moments in the entire film.

And then there’s the MVP of “Trap,” Jonathan Langdon’s vendor character, Jamie, who ends up inadvertently helping Cooper from the inside. Only the most well-meaning of goofs could ever be oblivious enough to give a serial killer a code word so he could pose as a concert employee and make his way through the venue virtually unseen, and that’s exactly what happens. Of course, this pays off with the hilarious mid-credits scene when we return to Jamie at his home watching the news and see him realize, in real time, exactly who is new friend actually was all along. Not since Mid-Sized Sedan in “Old” has Shyamalan been this overtly silly. And that’s not even getting into his traditional cameo appearance.

By the time the film ends with Cooper pulling off one illogical escape after another, moviegoers will either be on board or not. One thing’s for sure, though: This is Shyamalan’s funniest movie in years, and that’s going to drive detractors nuts. “Trap” is now playing in theaters.