My quick rating – 4.8/10. Rabbit Trap is one of those films that had everything going for it on paper, with remote Welsh countryside, folk magic, unsettling strangers appearing uninvited, but instead of getting under my skin, it mostly just hovered politely nearby, hoping I’d interpret it correctly. It’s a slow-burn folk horror that simmers at a constant low temperature but never reaches a boil.
Daphne (Rosy McEwen) and her husband Darcy (Dev Patel) are musicians who move to an isolated house in Wales to record weird atmospheric noises, which already feels like the setup for either a folk horror movie or a highly experimental 70s Joni Mitchell album. The sound design is, without question, the backbone of the entire film. Every creak, whisper, and gust of wind is dialed up to eleven, to the point where I’m convinced this script probably started life as an audio drama. The visuals match the ambition; bleakly gorgeous landscapes stretch for miles, making the couple look appropriately insignificant against whatever ancient force they’ve annoyed with their synth beats.
Enter Nameless Child, played by Jade Croot — who is, notably, a girl playing a boy. The character is referred to as male, but the casting choice adds a layer of gender ambiguity that the film never addresses. Maybe it was intentional. Perhaps it was supposed to be uncanny. Or am I supposed to “see with my ears,” or whatever metaphor the movie kept nudging me with? Either way, it was one more distraction in a movie already allergic to clarity.
The boy shows up at their home unannounced and immediately becomes that houseguest who overstays their welcome and starts rearranging your furniture. He traps rabbits, mutters mystical nonsense about fairies, and generally acts like an enthusiastic cult recruiter who hasn’t figured out his pitch yet. What baffled me most was how completely uncurious Daphne and Darcy are about this kid. No “where are your parents,” no “are you lost,” not even a casual “hey, why are you covered in rabbit entrails.” They just let him orbit their lives until he becomes an emotional parasite.
The problem isn’t ambiguity. I like ambiguity when it feels like the film is letting me solve something. This felt more like being handed a locked puzzle box with no key and told to “listen harder.” I kept waiting for a payoff — a twist, a surge of horror, even just a definitive something — but instead the film stays in its lane of quiet symbolism and expects the viewer to decode ancient Welsh folklore without a guidebook.
Ultimately, Rabbit Trap is beautifully made but emotionally impenetrable. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t disturbed. Mostly, I just felt left out of whatever mythological in-joke it was trying to share. If there was a message buried in all that rustic atmosphere and rabbit fur, it escaped before I could catch it.
