M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, Trap, takes place mostly during a pop star’s concert, which is certainly a unique gimmick. The throngs of screaming girls, booming music, and shuffling crowds create a tense and frustrating atmosphere as Josh Hartnett’s character (a father who is secretly a serial killer) tries to evade the police who are monitoring the event and find a way to escape. While Shyamalan’s films often require a suspension of disbelief (why do the aliens in Signs whose weakness is water invade a planet that is covered in it?), Trap introduces us to a truly bizarre concert that would never exist in real life.
Ironically, M. Night Shyamalan prides himself on the music event’s authenticity, telling Entertainment Weekly, “We did make a real concert, and that was part of the joy of it and the complexity. Behind Josh, there’s a real concert going on, and the extras are reacting to that. It took months and months to think about that, with Saleka [his real-life daughter who plays singer Lady Raven] and I analyzing who this woman is and how she would put on a show.”
But for all this meticulous planning, the final portrayal of this very public and chaotic setting feels nothing like a real-life concert. Usually we can chalk it up to Hollywood contrivances and just have fun and go along for the ride, but so much of Trap relies on this concept that’s difficult to buy into. This list breaks down all the strange parts of Lady Raven’s concert that left us scratching our heads.
