Rabbit Trap is billed as part of the horror genre, which comes with the set expectations of scares and a sense of tension, but it lacks both. The most it delivers is the occasional feeling of discomfort and annoyance. 

 

The movie follows a married couple in the 1970s who have moved to an isolated cabin from city life in London to work on their next music project. Dev Patel (Monkey Man) plays Darcy, a sound engineer who enjoys capturing natural sounds of nature around their cottage and his wife Daphne (Rosy McEwen, Apartment 7A) - a respected, but non-mainstream musician focused on abstract, indie music.

 

Together they discover a mysterious sound in their secluded surroundings and immediately think of incorporating this sound into their next album. The two live a peaceful, lowkey lifestyle in isolation when a mysterious child appears and quickly begins to bond with Daphne, desperately wanting her as a mother figure and to live with Darcy and Daphne as their child. Up to this point in the film, the pacing is incredibly slow, but naturally assumed it was building to something of substance (this was not the case). 

 

The child has a whimsical, elvish vibe with mysterious fairytale-like powers. I found this character incredibly irritating and unlikable, which may have been partially intended. It became such an overwhelming factor that my mind wanted to check out immediately from the cringy, socially awkward sequences. This, along with the distressing sound design that was comparable to nails running down a chalkboard. I don’t want to say it was an assault on the senses, but it did make me want to leave the space the characters were in on multiple occasions. 

 

On the positive side, the cinematography is gorgeous and Rabbit Trap is lovely to look at. There is one sense that was not being attacked: Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen as Darcy and Daphne; sharing a lovely chemistry as a married couple. Jade Crood offers a fair performance as The Child, despite me disliking her character wholeheartedly. I don’t want to blame the actor for the way their character is written, but I was not a fan of her character. 

 

I have a feeling there are many meaningful metaphors and folklore references present that simply went over my head. Perhaps there are some that will be able to better grasp what this movie was trying to do, but on a surface level I found little entertainment or personal meaning from it. I consider myself a fan of indie arthouse films, but this was a little out of my wheelhouse. I liken it more to a discarded, supplemental Hobbit movie (no offense to producer of this film Elijah Wood) and a fairy tale of forced adoption. 

 

Rabbit Trap feels like a short story concept, stretched thin into a feature. The luscious outdoor cinematography lures you in, but this lovely set of scenic wallpapers isn’t enough to support a feature length film that relies too heavily on its sourced unfamiliar, niche folklore.