Even Dev Patel can't stay awake through the beautiful bore of Rabbit Trap

Despite the arrival of this disturbing visitor, Darcy and Daphne don’t register any immediate threat, even when the child bluntly describes Tylwyth Teg, the mischievous sprites roused after one walks through a fairy circle. Daphne forms a particularly strong bond with the fae-child, who goes so far as to incessantly call her “mother.” Darcy is the one who finally starts to suspect that something is off, namely after the adolescent leads him into the forest to check out the spoils of some rabbit traps. Sensing that Darcy might soon push back against daily visits to the cottage, the child attempts to poison Daphne against her own husband, hoping that her underlying desire to become a mother might be enough to create a substantial wedge. 

This is where Rabbit Trap becomes a story about the strength of the couple’s bond as opposed to the presence of pagan powers, yet Chainey’s film never fully fleshes out the Davenports’ dynamic. They are too effortlessly loving, void of the petty idiosyncrasies that even the most devoted of couples can find varying degrees of annoyance in. However, Patel and McEwen are simply sexy to watch, their intimate chemistry partially making up for the sheer lack of depth conjured for their characters. There are also some interesting threads that go unintegrated into the story, a creative choice that the filmmaker likely saw as thoughtfully vague but instead reads as glaringly incomplete. One such example is the recurring night terror Darcy suffers from, in which a sinister nude man slowly inches toward his bed-bound body, a clear manifestation of repressed trauma. Intriguingly, Daphne records Darcy’s disquieting sleep talk whenever he experiences an episode, but nothing truly yields from this plot device that is totally sidelined by the couple’s attempt to conquer the child-like creature.

Unsurprisingly, the soundscape of Rabbit Trap is a real treat, but it needs something more than droning synths and field recordings to capture our attention. For audiophiles, however, the era-appropriate analog intricacies of Graham Reznick’s sound design alongside Dalt’s ominously whirring score are undeniably hypnotic, a sensation that unfortunately gives way to sleepiness. While watching, I couldn’t shake the resounding similarities between Rabbit Trap and Dead Mail, another horror film released earlier this year that is just as intensely tuned-in to the early advent of electronic music. The latter, however, ratchets up adequate anxiety, successfully intertwining plot points concerning the postal service, ’70s synth innovations, and a serial killer who fancies himself a musical savant. With both films bearing impeccable period details (in hairstyles, wardrobes, interiors, and recording technology), Chainey’s inability to build upon the dark magic housed within the Welsh wilderness results in dull drudgery. 

Sight and sound only get Rabbit Trap so far. Parting the ephemeral veil between mortal and metaphysical planes should evoke an air of excitement—or at least hew closely to stirring genre conventions, commanding our attention spans through effective scares and escalated tension. For all of its technical ambitions, the film falls completely flat in its attempt to meaningfully engage with the otherwise fascinating concept of Tylwyth Teg. As its title suggests, Rabbit Trap aims to ensnare its audience, but the experience is more like the purgatorial torture of being stuck at the DMV than a nerve-wracking hostage situation.

Director: Bryn Chainey
Writer: Bryn Chainey
Starring: Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen
Release Date: September 12, 2025