Tag M. Night Shyamalan

Trap is a film about a serial killer that attends a concert with his daughter that turns out to be snare meant to prevent him from escaping.

The film Trap, from Warner Brothers and M. Night Shyamalan, follows a father and his daughter as they attend a pop concert where law enforcement hope to catch a serial killer. The story focuses on Josh Hartnett’s character Cooper and his alter ego, The Butcher. He bounces around the arena between searching for an exit and spending time with his daughter. This is all while trying to figure out how law enforcement learned he would be there.

Every step of the way it seems the police are a step ahead and have another avenue of exit blocked off. His creativity with how he avoids them and blends in is quite impressive. If only he used his skills for good.

Having seen the trailer my first impression was that the film would focus on him recognizing he was trapped and then going on a killing spree to as one last party before the end. That is not the film we got. Like a classic Shyamalan film there is always a twist and this time it was much more subtle than expected. Typically his twists basically slap you in the face but this time it could be argued whether it truly is the twist at the end. Despite the film not being the story I expected, or wanted, it was still very well written, exceptionally acted and directed. This is one of those films that I’m certain has hidden details throughout and will require multiple watches to see everything and I’m looking forward to what I find on the next viewing.

The Team at 20th Century Studios have rereleased three of M. Night Shyamalan’s most famous films including Signs, the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable but we’re only looking at two of them.

The folks at 20th Century Studios sent us copies of both Signs and The Sixth Sense, both of which were written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The Sixth Sense was the first film I had ever seen by Shyamalan and was the first film with a major twist I had seen. I remember just seeing the faces in the crowd with me freaking out at the huge reveal. It was brilliantly executed and STILL holds up. Ironically, about a week before we received our review copies I was telling my oldest I would love to watch this film with her and now we have that chance. The Signs was released about three years later and followed a similar story progression but the subject of the story was centered around aliens and not the badass xenomorphs from Alien.

When Signs was first released, I had seen it in theaters and was disappointed. Having watched it again in 4k I have a couple notes. The first is that the visuals were clean and much more crisp than some footage I’d see online recently of the original release (same for The Sixth Sense). The second is that the story was much better told than I had remembered but the overall story still left me wanting more. The Sixth Sense though still holds up as a fantastic film and thoroughly enjoyed getting to share it once again with my family.

Watchers is the writing and directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, focusing on a group of of travelers that were lost in the woods.

Ishana Night Shyamalan is the writer and director of the film Watchers, starring Dakota Fanning. She is the daughter of film legend, M. Night Shyamalan who also acts as producer on the film. I didn’t know any of this, other than the title and the top billing star of the film. Watching the trailer, the film seemed to focus on Mina as she gets lost in the forest and discovering a strange building and darkness starting to fall. She’s told to enter the building immediately for her own safety and she does. She immediately notices that the room seems to be three concrete walls and a giant two way mirror where something or someone can see within. There she is taught the rules of the building, most important of which is that returning before nightfall is critical and that they are never to open the door during the night.

Based on the trailers I had seen, it appeared that the watchers may be some sort of cult or just some really weird people. Could even be some sort of corporation running some sort of social experiment. Regardless of who the watchers really are, the people within must put on a show of sorts for them, mostly just living within the confines of the their nightly cell.

For such a simple concept I was quite impressed with the film. With Shyamalan involved it comes as no surprise that there is a twist or two but within the context of the story they worked quite well. The lore of the story worked even better by the end. There was so little of it for the first half that I assumed we would never learn what was going on but thankfully I was wrong because the reveals were well worth it by the end. Overall the film kept me on the edge of my seat and was brilliantly written. I know that based on this film alone I look forward to seeing Ishana’s next project.