Sundance 2025: ‘Rabbit Trap’ is Intriguing, Mysterious Nature Horror
by Alex Billington
January 26, 2025
A brand new British folk horror creation has revealed itself at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Rabbit Trap is the feature directorial debut of up-and-coming British-Australian filmmaker Bryn Chainey, who both wrote and directed this film. Yet another extremely personal project based on his own worst fears and experiences, like many filmmakers trying to work through them by making a film about them. Rabbit Trap is set in 1976 and follows a young married couple who live out in the wilderness in rural England in a little cabin. While living out there alone, trying to make unique music and record natural sounds, they end up encountering some strange supernatural forces. This sends them into a tizzy as they attempt to make sense of what is going on – and it gets especially weird when a mysterious kid randomly shows up and works his/her way into their life. There are some intriguing ideas in this but it never amounts to much in the end, and the finale is rather lackluster. But I am enchanted by most of it anyway and I cannot write off the entire film.
Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap features two main characters: an avant-garde musician named Daphne, played by the extraordinarily talented Rosy McEwen, who “toils over reel-to-reel tape machines and oscillators in their cottage” while her withdrawn husband, Darcy, collects field recordings outside. Dev Patel co-stars as Darcy and is sort of the lead, though it drifts between both Darcy and Daphne throughout as things start to get strange. After strolling around the nearby woods one day, a magnificent forest in Wales, Darcy stumbles across a peculiar circle on the ground outlined by mushrooms. What is it? After stepping inside, everything begins to change. The next day a curious young androgynous child shows up near their home. Jade Croot stars as this young child, who they refuse to name, and it is clear as soon as he/she/it arrives that it’s not exactly human. But he does a good job convincing them he’s just a neighbor who knows the woods and is adept at rabbit trapping, while slowly getting them to accept him and let him in. While this happens, Darcy’s nightmares begin to get worse and the nature outside their cottage becomes ever more mysteriously weird.
I must admit that I actually loved the first half of Rabbit Trap: the magic and mystery and intrigue of the supernatural found in the earth and ground, connecting with this couple recording natural sounds to make an album. There is also the gorgeous countryside cottage they live in, with great shots of the nature around them. Cinematographer Andreas Johannessen had his work cut out for him – they just had to point the camera at the landscape around this place and it’s all just magically stunning. This magical nature-is-ravishing vibe is the best part of the film, alas the story doesn’t match the look and feel. The second half of the film is a big “HUH?” The film tries to be ethereal and unsettling as a horror feature but never amounts to much and wraps up with a rather confusing ending. I can make a guess as to what happens. As it goes on, and tries to deepen its mystery, there are some moments that seem to be building to something bigger and scarier, but they peter out quickly and the narrative just rolls on. I kept waiting for it to grow into something more thrilling but it never gets there… I wanted to cheer it on, but there’s not much to cheer for at the end.
Rabbit Trap is half of a captivating folk horror with some good ideas hindered by frustrating storytelling. I can’t say I didn’t like the film, I do like it, but only somewhat. I admire so much of it and what it’s trying to do and the mystique of the earth, I just don’t like where it ends up and how it seems to be missing a climax. Too many films like this recently that have a good idea and start out well but then go nowhere and never do anything with the concept. Chainey seems to be inspired by Ben Wheatley’s nature horror films like A Field in England and more recently In the Earth; even if he was not directly inspired by them, the comparison is accurate. Much like In the Earth, the second half of this is a let down as well, taking interesting characters to unexciting, uninteresting places. There’s one part in the finale that looks awesome and feels majestically unsettling, but it moves on way too quickly. Nature can be scary, especially the magic of the woods, but it’s considerably hard to capture this feeling properly in a horror film and turn that into a captivating narrative.
Alex’s Sundance 2025 Rating: 6.5 out of 10
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