In the ‘70s, a pseudoscientific idea called the Stone Tape theory started to gain popularity in the U.K. It was a theory that rocks and other inanimate objects can retain spiritual energy or trauma — like a tape. In other words, rocks might be haunted. It’s an intriguing idea, especially when you think about the thousands of old, creepy stone cottages that dot the British countryside, and the centuries of history and ghosts that they likely carry in their foundations. And it’s an idea that Rabbit Trap, writer-director Bryn Chainey’s new folk horror film starring Dev Patel, attempts to unpack, before taking a hard left turn into a baffling new genre.
Rabbit Trap opens with a strange image: a monitor with an audio waveform that moves and dilates with a woman’s hypnotic voice. Suddenly the voice distorts, and the waveform explodes into a series of kaleidoscopic images that move and twirl and seem … alive. It’s a tantalizing omen of things to come, which is immediately followed up by another intriguing scene: Darcy (Dev Patel) is recording the ambient sounds around the Welsh countryside cottage that he and his wife Daphne (Rosy McEwen) have just moved into. He has his microphone trained on a bird murmuration overhead, and the sound of the swooping, rustling birds is magnified through his headphones. We follow him as he records other such mundane things — the trickling of a creek, the rustling of grass, the squelching mud underfoot. But suddenly, he hears a strange, echoing noise emanating from the woods. Is it a voice? An old song recording? A radio frequency he’s somehow hacked? Either way, he follows the strange song of overlapping voices and haunting singing, which takes him straight to a fairy ring in the middle of a clearing. As he walks closer to the strange ring of mushrooms, the sounds get louder and louder, until it’s almost deafening. Then, as he steps into the ring, the sound suddenly cuts off — and Darcy passes out.
