Trap: M. Night Shyamalan Reveals Why Thriller’s Killer is Revealed Immediately

M. Night Shyamalan brings his latest claustrophobic thriller to theaters this weekend. Instead of trapping audiences in a forest getaway like Knock at the Cabin or an underground zoo as seen in Split, Shyamalan plays with the crowded setting of a concert venue. Trap follows Cooper (Josh Hartnett, Oppenheimer), a father bringing his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue, Wolf Like Me) to a concert for fictional pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, feature film debut). As revealed in the Trap trailers, the entire concert is secretly a sting operation to catch Cooper, who is secretly a serial killer known solely as “The Butcher.”

M. Night Shyamalan Details Trap’s Killer Reveal Decision

Unlike most killer thrillers, audiences enter Trap knowing who the murderer is from the jump.

Speaking to ComicBook, Trap director M. Night Shyamalan opened up about the decision to reveal the identity of The Butcher in marketing material, noting the plot of the film was always envisioned with Cooper’s true intentions being transparent from the get-go.

“The the actual interesting and wicked part of the movie is you are him,” Shyamalan said of Trap‘s main character, as the story is told through his perspective. “That was the thing that made me want to do it. We’ve seen a million stories about serial killers, but to say you are him and this is what life is like for you on the day that you might get caught [is new].”

While it is rare for serial killer stories to be told through the point of view of the killer, antagonists being positioned in leading roles has become more prevalent in modern Hollywood. In the comic book realm, DC spotlit supervillains like The Suicide Squad and Joker in their own solo movies, while Marvel spun off Tom Hiddleston’s trickster god into his own Loki series, a two-season show that evolved the character into more of an anti-hero.

When it comes to Cooper, Shyamalan went as far as to label Trap‘s main man as the film’s protagonist, even if his tendencies fall more into a villainous category.

“The villain is the protagonist. He’s both the antagonist and the protagonist,” Shyamalan continued. “It’s very interesting. The good guys at points are the antagonist and you’re like, ‘How did I get here on this side of this argument?’ I was rooting for him. We know this is not the good guy, but we kind of want to see him continue to evade all this. It was really cool.”

Trap hits theaters this Friday, August 2nd.