6/12 ForReel Score | 2.5/5 Stars

Sometimes when I'm watching a movie, I'll close my eyes for a few seconds just to digest the soundscape. I'll save you the diatribe about the importance of sound in cinema or how they exist on two different playing fields, but the auditory experience is its own version of cinema. That might be part of why I love horror films so much. Beyond all else, they're first and foremost sensory experiences that are designed to elicit some sort of emotion. Following a married pair of musicians on a folksy retreat into the Welsh countryside, Rabbit Trap is less of a horror film than it is a fairy tale.

I can't lie and act like I don't feel a little blueballed by the promise of this being a horror movie. Why not dub it as a fantasy film? It's an odd choice all by itself, but I'm able to look past it a little bit. The supernatural elements are there, but none of it is scary. There's a mysterious quality that’s enough to keep me invested, but the whole time I was wondering when things would kick into high gear. The surrealism is there and so is the suspense, but it all feels like buildup for something that never comes. It definitely didn't help that this was specified as “cosmic horror,” which makes things even more confusing because there's nothing cosmic about it. We’re given sporadic glimpses of nightmare sequences, but they feel completely out of place within the context of the rest of the film. Maybe my expectations were set too high, or maybe I was just told the wrong thing, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed.

Aside from my disappointment with mismatched genres, Rabbit Trap’s focal point is the relationship between the couple, played by Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen. McEwen plays Daphne, an analog electronic musician, while Patel plays her sound-engineering husband, Darcy. In their spells of creativity, director Bryn Chainey allows for these moments to sink into your eardrums. The sound design and rich 35mm photography create a tactile viewing experience, and accompanying that tactility with folk-horror aesthetics makes for a wonderful vibe, but I can't help but feel that a concrete vibe is the only thing that Rabbit Trap offers.

The central drama of Rabbit Trap is when a weird kid increasingly inserts himself into the quiet lives of the two musicians. Played by newcomer Jade Croot, the nameless child is creepy by way of Barry Keoghan in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, except with a much denser sense of ambiguity behind him. Like Keoghan’s performance in Sacred Deer, there's an intentionally stilted delivery in his words, but there's a stronger sense of affability to the child that makes his intentions all the more unclear. When I have kids, I pray to any deity that’s listening in hopes that my kid isn't like that.

The interpersonal conflict between the three characters works to some degree in the first half, until you realize that this annoying kid is pretty much the only intrigue the movie has to offer. Are there monsters? Are there fairies? Is there some supernatural monster lurking in the abyss of the forest? It gets to a point where the ambiguity stops being interesting and you just start waiting for something to happen.

Chainey is working with a lot of personal themes and issues about familial trauma, which is always respectable, but he shrouds it in so much unnecessary ambiguity that I feel like he could’ve cut to the chase sooner. There are the vaguest blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments that seem to unbox the enigma of Rabbit Trap, but it feels like it's a film for the director only. Thankfully, the themes of familial trauma are subtle enough for me to not roll my eyes at them like other films (I’m looking at you, Talk to Me) but there also comes a point where subtlety is overhauled for the cinematic equivalent of a Rubix cube. I understood what Chainey was going for and I liked the message, but there is an enormous dissonance between intent and execution.

For a directorial debut, Rabbit Trap is certainly solid, but there is so much room for improvement on Chainey’s part. He has the technical skill, sure, but he needs to bring it home next time. I liked bits and pieces, some parts I actually loved, but the highs and lows never reached an equilibrium for me. Chainey has great potential as a filmmaker, there’s no doubt about it, and it’s obvious that he’ll only improve from here. Regardless, Rabbit Trap wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea – or whatever they drink in Wales.

Sundance 2025 | Movie Review: "Rabbit Trap" Gets Caught Up In The Build Up