M. Night Shyamalan’s New Movie Has A Perfect Horror Movie Connection

M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming thriller Trap is already set to be an exciting addition to the director’s filmography, but the movie’s trailer also contains a sly nod to another horror project. Throughout his career, Shyamalan has never been averse to including subtle references and winks to the audience. However, while the director’s Easter eggs are often self-referential, Trap seems to contain a detail that moves the focus beyond Shyamalan himself.

Perhaps the biggest hallmark of Shyamalan’s filmmaking style is his penchant for twists. While his over-reliance on subversive plot points has been parodied many times over the years, his successful use of the technique in movies like The Sixth Sense and The Village helped bring him critical acclaim. However, beyond his use of elaborate plot twists, Shyamalan is also known for cameoing in several of his movies. While Trap is yet to reveal whether it has its own M. Night Shyamalan cameo, one moment from the trailer suggests that the director is experimenting with a new form of self-referentialism, incorporating his family.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap Includes A Reference To His Daughter’s New Horror Movie

Rather than including himself in the Trap trailer, M. Night Shyamalan has made a much more subtle nod by including a poster for an upcoming film made by his daughter. At approximately 1:09 in the trailer, a poster can be seen for a movie called The Watchers, glimpsed briefly as a column of trucks file past. Closer inspection reveals that this is in fact part of the marketing material for The Watchers, directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and produced by M. Night himself.

Interestingly, the inclusion of The Watchers poster is not Trap‘s only reference to Shyamalan’s family. The movie, which revolves around a concert, also includes a mysterious popstar known as Lady Raven. Raven is played by another of Shyamalan’s daughters, Saleka. However, while Lady Raven may play a more pivotal role in Trap‘s story than The Watchers, the fact that the film includes a meta-reference to other Shyamalan projects actually has profound implications for the world in which the movie is set.

Trap’s The Watchers Reference Means M. Night Shyamalan Exists In This Universe

The fact that a film made by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter exists within the story of Trap means that, by necessity, M. Night Shyamalan is himself a real person within the movie’s universe. After all, given that The Watchers poster in the trailer is for the same movie made by Ishana Night Shyamalan, it follows that her father must also exist in whatever world Trap is set in. Understandably, this development has some potentially serious consequences for the kind of story Trap will tell and what form the narrative might take.

Typically, Shyamalan has been known for incorporating supernatural elements into his movies. Starting with The Sixth Sense‘s notorious ghosts and continuing through other releases like Old and the Unbreakable series, fantasy and the paranormal have always been a feature of the director’s work. However, the fact that Trap is situating M. Night Shyamalan and his family as real figures within the narrative suggests that the movie’s story may be much more realistic and grounded than is typical.

If Shyamalan is portrayed as a real person, it follows that the supernatural will be absent from Trap‘s story. Naturally, this limits the kinds of twists that the director may use to wrong-foot the audience, keeping a grounding in reality at all times. Considering that the film revolves around the antics of a diabolical serial killer (played by Josh Hartnett), this has the potential to make Trap even more unnerving, since its story can’t so easily be dismissed as outlandish fiction. While Trap‘s The Watchers reference might be fleeting, it nonetheless has profound implications for the film.

M. Night Shyamalan Could Have A Perfect Meta Cameo In Trap Now

Establishing that M. Night Shyamalan exists within Trap‘s universe not only has implications for the movie’s story, it also lays the groundwork for the director to make his most effective cameo yet. Instead of appearing as a random character, as has been the case throughout his previous movies, Shyamalan can use Trap‘s setup to appear in the film as himself. Not only would this properly pay off The Watchers poster tease, but it would constitute the most meta Easter egg in a Shyamalan movie.

Given the context of the story, it’s unlikely that Shyamalan would play a major role in Trap. However, he could still appear as a concertgoer, or even in another glimpsed visual reference like The Watchers poster. Such a cameo would both be a satisfying nod to the audience, but would also complete the trio of Shyamalans already explicitly involved in Trap.