M. Night Shyamalan Is Back With Another Movie—and Even More Twists. Let’s Break it Down. (2024)

Following the knockout success of Trap, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest project is Caddo Lake, Max’s new mystery thriller from Topside directors Logan George and Celine Held. (Shyamalan produced the film under his production company.) The film, which stars Eliza Scanlen (Little Women, Sharp Objects) and Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf, Saturday Night), follows the townspeople of Karnack, Texas, after the disappearance of an 8-year-old girl causes weird things to happen on the lake. The trailer hints at a sci-fi-ish plot in what turns out to be an incredibly time-twisty movie that can be difficult to follow. But the better question is whether the nonchronological turn of events lives up to the standards of a Shyamalan picture. For the curious Shyamalan-heads out there, I present a breakdown of the twist and determine whether Caddo Lake is worth a watch. Spoilers ahead!

OK, what’s really going down in Karnack, Texas?

To answer that, I need to tell you how everyone involved is related. Caddo Lake follows two protagonists: The first is Ellie (Scanlen), a girl in her late teens or early 20s whenever this takes place, in 2022—she says something about graduating a semester early, which sounds like college-speak. Ellie has a tense relationship with her redheaded mother, whose name we later find out is Celeste. (I’m mentioning hair color for reasons that will become obvious.) Ellie’s father disappeared when Ellie was a baby, and Celeste wound up marrying a man named Daniel Bennett (Eric Lange), who has an 8-year-old daughter, Anna, from a previous relationship. Ellie and Anna are fairly close. The real drama starts when Ellie and Celeste have a fight, causing Ellie to storm off. Ellie gets a call the next morning that Anna is missing. The assumption is that Anna probably went to follow the upset Ellie (something she has done before) but must’ve gotten lost, hurt, or harmed by someone else.

Meanwhile, Caddo Lake star No. 2 is Paris Lang (O’Brien), a young man still reeling from the death of his mother a few years prior. Paris’ mother had a seizure while driving that sent her car—with both her and Paris inside it—over a barrier into the lake below. Paris’ subsequent inability to healthily cope cost him his relationship with his redheaded girlfriend (you see where I’m going with this?) who moved to Houston before the film’s start. Circumstances bring the girlfriend back to town, where she and a healthier-seeming Paris briefly reignite their relationship. But after feeling odd sensations while working on the lake, Paris regresses to becoming newly obsessed with finding real answers about his mother’s death, which he believes was attributed to a medical misdiagnosis.

I should also note that Caddo Lake takes place in the real region of Karnack, Texas, and the actual Caddo Lake, so the main form of travel is via dinghies and skiffs on the water—fittingly, the entire movie gives the vibe of creepy-ass swamp.

Creepy lake, missing girl—classic. Plus, two copper-haired women of different ages? I’m sensing some timeline trickery.

And you’d be correct! Basically, both Paris and Ellie discover a spot on the lake that causes you to hop through different times. Paris discovers it while investigating the spot where his mother died, and Ellie finds it during her search for Anna. It becomes clear that Anna must have accidentally traveled through time when she went to follow Ellie.

These suspicions are confirmed when Paris accidentally phases to 1952 and finds 8-year-old Anna. Meanwhile, Ellie makes her way to 2005, where she runs into Paris’ girlfriend, who is holding her baby. Of course, this girlfriend turns out to be Celeste, and the baby she is holding is Ellie herself. Celeste gives present-day Ellie a flyer that states that Paris went missing in 2003. Ellie also finds out through this exchange that Paris’ mother, the one who died in the car accident on the bridge, was named Anna.

OK. So Paris is Ellie’s dad—that was easy enough to guess. But Anna …

… is Ellie’s grandmother, yes. In 2005, after the reveal, Ellie goes to an internet café to do some investigating and confirms that Anna grew up and lived a happy, healthy life, with records of her starting in 1952. She, of course, will grow up to eventually give birth to Paris years later. How’s that for a second twist? If you ask me, I think Anna being Paris’ mother is a bigger twist than Paris being Ellie’s father.

So, if Ellie was about a year old in 2005 and the present day takes place in 2022, that would make her about 17 years old. How is she worried about graduating a semester early?

No clue! Talk about unsolved mysteries …

Wait, so what are the rules of this time slip? Why has no one discovered it before?

Rules? In a time-travel movie? Now you’re asking for too much. But here’s what we do know: While the actual machinations of the lake spot are unclear—it seems as if you walk through it and have no control over where you end up—its existence is fairly finite. The movie explains that the time slip exists only when the water on the lake is low; when it fills back up, the time slip closes.

So Daniel, Ellie’s stepfather, is also her great-grandfather?

Yes. And I so wish that when she went back to 2022, she got an AncestryDNA kit for the whole family, and was simply like: Spit in this tube if you don’t believe me! But basically, Celeste and Ellie realize that Paris never intentionally left, he just got stuck in time, and that the same will happen to Anna.

Does Paris ever make it back?

Unfortunately, no. Paris accidentally makes it to 2022, where Anna’s boat was lying around near the time-slip point. He takes the boat and rides around just to see where he is—on a mission to try and save his mother, one assumes—but he is seen by law enforcement who are patrolling for Anna. From the patrol’s point of view, Paris is an unidentified man in a missing 8-year-old’s boat. That doesn’t look too good! He gets detained by police, but realizes that, due to an incoming storm, the portal will close when the water level rises and he’ll be stuck there for the foreseeable future. He tries to flee law enforcement but dies in the process. He never makes it back, which means he never finds out he has a daughter.

Man, that is really sad. But surely logistically this whole time-loop thing would cause some problems. I mean, does adult Anna ever say anything about, you know, being from the future?

Unfortunately, we don’t know much about Anna’s thoughts or life after she “disappears” to 1952. Neither Paris nor his father mentions her saying anything about being from a different time. However, Paris does find out, with the help of a log of his mother’s seizures, that every time the water is low, she has an episode. We find out that going through the time glitch causes the same symptoms that Anna exhibited upon her death, which the doctors read as myoclonic seizures. This could suggest that she was traveling between time to visit her real home every few years. It also could just mean that the symptoms flare up when the portal is open for anyone who’s gone through. It could also mean nothing. This is a movie.

However, to your point, there is a somewhat comedic moment when there are two Ellies running around, so you have that to look forward to.

I appreciate the extensive spoilers. Ultimately, though, just how Shyamalan-esque is this movie?

Now that I’m spelling it out myself, I’m realizing how little sense this movie makes. As good as the humbly great actor Dylan O’Brien might be in it—he is quite good—I don’t think this one lives quite up to the expectations of a classic Shyamalan film. Also, it made me sad, and for some reason that annoyed me. I would say watch this one if you’re craving a new twisty story, but don’t expect it to be the next Trap.