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RABBIT TRAP

Year: 2024

Running Time: 97 min

Country: United Kingdom

Language: English

Director(s):

Bryn Chainey

Cast:

Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen, Jade Croot

SYNOPSIS:

When a musician and her husband move to a remote house in Wales, the music they make disturbs local ancient folk magic, bringing a nameless child to their door who is intent on infiltrating their lives.

Set in 1976, writer and director Bryn Chainey’s extraordinary debut feature invokes the eerie spirit of British folk horror, conjuring supernatural dread in a fecund Welsh forest. Obsessive avant-garde musician Daphne (Rosy McEwen) toils over reel-to-reel tape machines and oscillators in their cottage while her withdrawn husband, Darcy (Dev Patel), collects field recordings in the nearby woods. Their activities draw the attention of a mysterious young rabbit trapper (an unnerving Jade Croot) who beguiles them, disturbing their fragile peace.

Rabbit Trap casts a spell of haunted sensuality and submerged trauma through cinematographer Andreas Johannessen’s tactile 35mm images, and a synesthetic soundscape made in collaboration between composer Lucrecia Dalt and sound designer Graham Reznick. Patel and McEwen are quietly moving as the young couple, grounding this otherworldly fable with a portrait of a marriage sustained through fraught intimacy and restless creative collaboration.

SUNDANCE REVIEW 2025 - BY DARREN ZAKUS

DATE: Sunday, January 26, 2025


Rating: 2 out of 5


Rabbit Trap features first rate technicals from sound designer Graham Reznick and cinematographer Andreas Johannessen that breathe life into writer director Bryn Chainey’s folk horror tale, but a lacklustre narrative fails to create the chilling horror experience and instead will leave restless in their seats.


There is something about the countryside of the United Kingdom that is perfectly suited for the folk horror genre. The setting dates back to classics of the genre such as The Wicker Man, which makes it the prime environment for Bryn Chainey’s feature debut film Rabbit Trap. Playing with themes that are common to the horror genre, Chainey paints his vision against the backdrop of the Welsh countryside that is brought to life through the astonishing sound design and cinematography of the film, though the story never comes together to fully realize his ideas of conjure up the chilling experience that viewers are hoping for.


If there is one thing that will leave you speechless about Rabbit Trap, it is the film’s immersive sound design. With McEwen’s Daphne being an electronic musician working on her new album, sound is at the centre of the film and sound designer Graham Reznick delivers some of the best sound work of the decade so far! Capturing every single sound with a precise clarity from the howling of the wind, crunching of the ground or running of water, there is not a sound that is lost within the film, even when mixed together with the audio, which helps to bolster the film’s big jump scare. Combined with Lucrecia Dalt’s eerily hypnotic musical score, the soundscape of the film captures Chainey’s singular vision for the film to create the mysteries of both the story and Welsh countryside to fully draw the audience into the melancholy environment of the film with an edge that will keep audiences uncomfortable in their seats. 


Equally as impressive as Reznick’s sound design is the cinematography of Andreas Johannessen. Captured on 35 mm film, Johannessen captures a richness in every frame while photographing the natural beauties of the Welsh countryside to great effect. Every shot of the countryside echoes a magical element with the wide shots capturing the vastness and rugged, harsh environment and the ancient forests, allowing Johannessen to make the natural environment the unofficial fifth character of Rabbit Trap. Combined with the strong production design which captures the folklore roots of the story as reflected in Davenport’s country home, practical visual effects and the authentic audio recording devices that Daphne works with, there is not an element of the film’s visuals that misses the mark.


Chainey uses the folk horror subgenre to explore themes of past trauma, communication and parenthood within his screenplay, and each idea is rich. Ideas of parenthood are explored as Darcy and Daphne are confronted with the unnamed Child who inserts themselves into their life, while Darcy is grappling with unresolved childhood trauma that he is afraid to share with Daphne. The latter works great with the central idea of sound in the story, allowing the freeing of this trauma to be resolved through sharing of words, showing a brilliance in Chainey’s vision for this story. 


Sadly though, while Chainey’s creativity for the story is not without merit, its execution on screen loses the wonder of his ideas in a reductive exploration of trauma that has become all too tired within the horror genre. Playing out using basic tropes of the horror genre, the unnamed Child, while seemingly innocent at first, slowly worms their way into the middle for Darcy and Daphne’s home and relationship. There is no secret what direction the story is heading, while predictable creepy moments play out as the narrative slowly meanders to the point where the Child has fully inserted themselves into the Davenport family. And when that happens in the third act, the story takes a drastic and confusing change. While this change leans heavily into the folk horror elements of the story, it's a puzzling narrative direction that while allow Chainey’s main themes to be highlighted in the final scene, makes viewers question why the tone of the first two acts is the exact opposite of the film’s ending. This sadly leaves both Patel and McEwen with very little material to work with thematically as their characters are stuck within the confines of the horror genre tropes, despite their strong efforts and undeniable connection to bring as much life to their characters as possible, though Jade Croot cooks in her portrayal of the Child. With every scene, Croot mixes a youthful innocence with dark intentions that bolsters the eerie atmosphere created by the film’s technicals, even if it feels like she has taken a masterclass in the Barry Keoghan school of acting and doing her best impersonation of him in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of the Sacred Deer.


It’s easy to see the potential in Bryn Chainey’s first feature film that plunges headfirst into the folk horror genre in the eerie Welsh countryside. The technical aspects of the film are first rate, allowing the sense of dread and melancholy to permeate every single frame of the film, even if the strong ideas and themes at play divulge into a reductive horror exploration of trauma that fails to stimulate viewers. Though the immersive sound design of Graham Reznick and cinematography of Andreas Johannessen is unmatched and creates the perfect setting for Bryn Chainey’ story to unfold in, but not even the talented cast of Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen and Jade Croot can stimulate the reductive exploration of Bryn Chainey’s great ideas in the sadly disappointing Rabbit Trap.

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