“Rabbit Trap,” the horror folk tale from Bryn Chainey, is that unfortunate kind of creation: a work that so clearly possesses the tools that might make a good, captivating film, but instead ends up lost in the workshop, too busy admiring its own handiwork.
Chainey’s feature debut takes place in a secluded cottage in Wales, surrounded by a forest, where a young married couple, Darcy (Dev Patel), an audiologist, and Daphne (Rosy McEwen), a musician, have recently settled to absorb and record the rich soundscapes of the area. When a mysterious and lonesome child (Jade Croot) appears one day, they take pity and begin to bring him into their world. But as darker secrets bubble and cryptic lines are whispered, eerie forces soon turn things upside down.
It’s a largely enveloping experience in its first half: As you might expect, the sound design is impressive and immersive, the imagery lush and the performances in the central roles well calibrated. But beyond its setup, “Rabbit Trap” fails to dig further into its characters or clarify what it’s really trying to say before the final act plunges everything into madness and the film folds in on itself.
Everything, it turns out, seems to have been built backward for the sake of the movie’s trippy atmospherics and puzzle-box denouement. You might be able to unpack bits of its network of meaning — tied to undercooked ideas around grief and childhood trauma — but there’s so little substance underlying the suspense that when you finally get your “aha” answers, you’re left wondering why you came into the woods in the first place.
Rabbit Trap
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.
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