Trap features M. Night Shyamalan at his lowest

The biggest issue of Trap— and certainly one of at least a dozen — is this is a promo for the pop music career of the director's daughter disguised as a blockbuster thriller.

The story sees an Eras Tour-level live music event used as a massive snare for a serial killer known as The Butcher (Josh Hartnett).

Hartnett transfers from corny father to beguiling criminal to menacing killer in the course of 100 minutes (all of which you've witnessed in the marketing).

He's the only one acting even remotely decent in a film with some of the most abysmal acting in recent memory.

Seriously, who cast this picture?

Shyamalan, who showed a real evolution as a filmmaker with Knock at the Cabin, takes several massive steps backward with this predictable cat-and-mouse chase.

With Nicolas Cage's haunting Longlegs barely in the rearview mirror, this is a serial killer with no teeth in a largely PG world.

The police force of Philadelphia and the FBI ought to sue for such an ineptitude of law enforcement on display.

Many claimed nepotism after Shyamalan's daughter Ishana made a carbon copy of her father's work in this year's The Watchers (a film I actually enjoyed).

But here, he subjects viewers to about 25 minutes of his other daughter Saleka performing pop songs while The Butcher squirms through it all in the first act.

It is wasted time that could have been better suited fleshing out Hayley Mills' FBI profiler or giving any amount of substance whatsoever to the rest of the story.

This ranks among the bottom tier of the twisty director's seesaw of a career.

4 out of 10