Deep into Rabbit Trap, the directorial debut of Bryn Chainey, a character mentions that “with your eyes you enter the world. With your ears, the world enters you.” While sound has always been essential to horror, it has rarely felt as especially oppressive and overwhelming as it does throughout Rabbit Trap, with Chainey aiming to unsettle the audience more aurally than visually. It’s an ingenious idea, one of many that Rabbit Trap has that doesn’t entirely work as well as one would hope. But while many films could crumble under that, Rabbit Trap feels more like a promising introduction to Chainey, rather than a film defined by its flawed and untapped potential.
What Is ‘Rabbit Trap’ About?

Image by Jovelle Tamayo via Sundance Institute

Darcy Davenport (Dev Patel) and his wife Daphne (Rosy McEwen) live in a secluded house in 1976 Wales, where they work together to create music. Darcy takes his microphone around the property and records all sorts of intriguing sounds, which Daphne then turns into jarring, pulsing songs. At one point, Darcy mentions that the music Daphne makes isn’t made to be “popular,” but there’s an intensity and excitement to the tracks that Daphne can create from Darcy’s found noises. Even within this isolated artistic life, occasionally, Darcy will have frightening dreams that leave him almost paralyzed with fear in his sleep.
One day, the couple meets an unnamed child (Jade Croot), who starts integrating themselves into their lives. Darcy shows them his recording process, while Daphne almost becomes like a mother to the child. But when the couple starts to distance themselves from this unknown child, things become exceedingly strange.
‘Rabbit Trap’ Is a Compelling Mixture of Genres

Rabbit Trap is certainly a slow burn of a film, as Chainey sets the mood for this unusual piece. He’s in no rush, as we spend plenty of time with the Davenport family and we get to experience their everyday routine, which is, after quite a while, jarred by this unexpected appearance. But this dragged-out approach works for the film’s tone, as we simmer and wait for what is to come, with droning music by composer Lucrecia Dalt and stunning cinematography from Andreas Johannessen. Already in his first film, Chainey proves how perfectly he can create atmosphere, and it’s one of the standout elements of Rabbit Trap.

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It’s also fascinating how effectively Chainey combines multiple different genres into his first feature. In addition to that unsettling horror feeling that permeates the entirety of Rabbit Trap, Chainey also throws in elements of thrillers, mystery, and fantasy, and even delves into fairy tales, as the Davenports explore the woods around their home even further. Tonally, Rabbit Trap is a blend that works quite well, and always keeps the viewer on edge, even when the film is at its most serene. It’s also truly impressive how much of that tone is set up simply with the incredible sound design throughout the film, and how easily Chainey can shift our emotions by making the slightest changes.
‘Rabbit Trap’ Is Aesthetically Pleasing, but Its Script Can’t Pull This All Together

Image Via Sundance Film Festival

Chainey turns Rabbit Trap into a striking fantasy fairy tale, but his script doesn’t hold this story together entirely. At times, Rabbit Trap feels too vague in what is actually happening and what we’re supposed to be getting out of this story. Other times, the film tries to cram in explanations and throw everything it can at us to help us comprehend what’s going on. Chainey’s screenplay has a hard time balancing its exposition in a way that isn’t somewhat frustrating — as if it’s trying to be curiously open-ended, which only takes the film so far. It wants us to mull over its questions, but often doesn’t give us enough to latch onto so we know what direction this is trying to head in. We know the film is putting us on a path, yet it’s hard to find our bearings on that road.
What does hold this story together are the performances by Patel, McEwen, and Croot. As the only three people we see throughout the film, Rabbit Trap is almost entirely reliant on their dynamic, and their shifting relationships often make up for the script’s vagueness. There’s plenty unspoken between Darcy and Daphne, and much of their relationship comes out in simply the way these two interact, and in what they keep from each other. Patel and McEwen both give subtle performances that feel unconventional in a story of this form. However, it’s Croot who’s the true standout, completely upending the tranquil like these two have in both good and bad ways. As we try to solve the mystery that Chainey is holding out from us, the most gripping piece to this puzzle is absolutely Croot’s unnamed child character. Croot matches the tone that Chainey presents and takes this story in some wild directions — especially in a third act that both confounds and begins to make some things clear.
Rabbit Trap is frequently a collection of cool ideas that don’t come together in an entirely effective way. It is an ambitious flurry of ideas, and while it doesn’t entirely work, there’s an extremely promising filmmaker within Chainey. Rabbit Trap feels like the type of film that comes from a filmmaker who truly stuns with their second or third feature, but is still trying to figure things out entirely in the early days of their career.
Rabbit Trap had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Rabbit Trap

Bryn Chainey’s debut, Rabbit Trap, is an interesting, albeit flawed fantasy horror that leaves too much to the imagination.

Release Date

January 24, 2025

Runtime

97 Minutes

Director

Bryn Chainey

Writers

Bryn Chainey

Cast

Rosy McEwen

Daphne Davenport

Pros & Cons

Chainey combines fantasy, horror, and fairy tales to create something wholly unique.
Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen, and Jade Croot form a fascinating but strange family unit.
Chainey proves himself to be a promising new filmmaker with this genre mashup.

Chainey’s film over-explains some aspects of his film, while under-explaining other elements.
Rabbit Trap doesn’t fully come together until its wild third act.