Trap - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap was almost immediately met with divisive reactions upon release. Some derided it for being another twist-filled walk down Shyamalan Road while others were completely turned off by its tongue-in-cheek humor and style. To me, it was pretty clear that Shyamalan was making a movie about being a father. This is about action and reaction; breaking down the behaviors of a father when his own demons prevent him from being as present as he wants to be. But to do something that lofty in a thriller structure? No wonder the film was met with derision and dismissiveness. That isn’t to say that Trap is by any means immune to criticism, because it is a wildly corny stakes-raising thriller that can be seen as doing a disservice to its genre elements. 

Trap follows Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) as they’re on their way to see Riley’s favorite pop artist perform at the Tanaka Center in Philadelphia. The pop star is Lady Raven, played by Shyamalan’s daughter and respected pop artist Saleka. But as the duo arrives at the concert, Cooper starts noticing a lot of police activity at the stadium and inquires with a merch vendor about it. The vendor informs him that the police are looking for The Butcher, a serial killer recently wreaking havoc on locals, and the police have set up the concert as a trap for him. Now, with Cooper’s charming façade starting to break down, will he be able to escape the venue without being caught? And how will he avoid his daughter finding out?

As you sit down and get ready for 105 minutes of rollicking suspense and more twists than you can shake a stick at, let’s have a word about believability. Yes, everything that happens in Trap would most likely never happen in real life. All the stakes-raising twists and dumb police cliches are ripped directly from the Hitchcock handbook, but I found how Shyamalan was using twists to show or hide empathy to be really engaging here. Cooper is a serial killer, plain and simple. His smarmy smile cannot hide the fact that he’s a monster, but watching him try to evade being captured all the while making sure his daughter is happy can only be taken as a direct metaphor for how Shyamalan feels about parenting. In a way, Shyamalan is very clearly positioning Cooper’s addiction as his own. An addiction that will destroy the family unit. But how it does that is Trap’s biggest lure to audiences.

Take the foo-foo nutty script away for a second and look at Trap from a technical perspective. Shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Luca Guadagnino’s usual DP) the film is a gorgeous and dizzying display of claustrophobia on the biggest scale possible. Those classic confessional close-ups reveal the humanity and slickness of empathy that Shyamalan is trying to capture, then the camera revels in watching Cooper manipulate spaces to his own benefit. There’s no need for a thriller to be this breathlessly captured for something so silly, but that’s Shyamalan’s mode and nobody else does it better.

The manipulation of morals is on the menu in Trap, and Shyamalan makes a thrilling work of it all by showing where the darkness lies within the classic American family unit. That may sound all too much to you for your classic thriller, but that’s the movie’s challenge to viewers. By showcasing how difficult it is for its characters to stay in the present moment, the twist is that the movie is about all of us impatient idiots in the audience. Whether you can accept that message is up to you. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Alright, everyone! Lady Raven is ready to get up on stage in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, now available as a one-disc 4K release from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The 4K disc is a UHD100 and houses both the feature and special features. The disc sits in a classic black amaray case and there’s a glossy slipcover that goes over it as well. The disc boots up to a standard menu screen with options to play the film, set up audio, browse bonus features and select chapters.

Trap was shot (or captured, heh) on Super 35mm using the Arricam LT camera rig with Cooke Panchro/i and Zeiss Super Speed lenses, then it was finished as a 4K digital intermediate. The resulting presentation is another reference-grade transfer from Warner Bros. The Dolby Vision HDR layer pulls the most detail from the source as possible, but I’ll admit this is a film that isn’t designed to wow with bright primaries and deep contrast. The HDR is very delicate in that it boosts flesh tones minimally and enhances black levels just right to where they’re inky. Those confessional close-ups reveal fine detail in clothing, hair and eye color without blowing everything out with HDR, plus the rock-solid HEVC encode hovers between 85-95 mbps for the majority of the presentation and resolves the fine layer of grain well. This is a beautifully filmic transfer for such a new movie and is bound to wow users at home.

As for audio, we’re provided with a stellar Dolby Atmos track that pulls out all the stops for this thriller. When the film is inside the concert venue, you’re flanked by surround effects that don’t take away from the focus of whoever is in the shot. Bass levels are a bit softer than I expected, but LFE is far and above the star of the show here. All the echoes that cascade across the surround channels sound terrific, and the track can really feel claustrophobic during the intense sequences. Another great Atmos upgrade from Warner Bros.

As for the supplements, there are a few quick featurettes and deleted scenes to dig into here, including an extended concert sequence to showcase one of Lady Raven/Saleka’s key tracks. The EPK-style featurettes are pretty brief and don’t give much background on the film that we don’t already know, and the deleted scenes don’t reveal much either aside from a couple of things left on the cutting room floor. This is a pretty standard supplement package on a studio release, lacking in the exploration of the production in a way that’s worthwhile.

Special features include:

• "Setting the Trap: A New M. Night Shyamalan Experience" featurette (HD 4:08)
• "Saleka as Lady Raven" featurette (HD 5:08)
• Deleted scenes (HD 6:16)
• Extended Concert Scene: “Where Did She Go” (HD 3:29)

The master of suspense has returned. No, I don’t mean Hitchcock, I mean M. Night Shyamalan. His new film Trap arrives on 4K Blu-ray from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment with a reference-grade 2160p presentation aided by Dolby Vision HDR, a stellar Dolby Atmos track and a few supplements to enjoy. This release comes Highly Recommended!