Within minutes of the title card, knocking and whispers in the walls are plaguing young Peter despite his parents’ promises that it’s merely the creaks and critters of an old house. Cobweb wears its gothic influences proudly on its autumnal sleeves (why this is releasing in the heat of summer rather than in time for trick-or-treating is a puzzle for the ages), but stylish nods and a game cast can only go so far.
Chris Thomas Devlin’s rocket-propelled script doesn’t wait long to start piling on eeriness and unease atop the bedroom wall whispers. Vicious bullies target Peter (Woody Norman) at school, where his only ally is sympathetic substitute teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), while parents Mark and Carol keep their son in a controlling grasp that soon escalates from extreme helicopter parenting to much more…sinister behavior. The sweet voice in the walls soon becomes the only source of understanding and friendship for the boy, which is a situation that has certainly never gone wrong before, no need to worry.
If that plot sounds overly clichéd and simplistic, that’s because clichés and simple characterizations is all that Cobweb has to offer. Whatever nuance could’ve fleshed out this story feels like it was mercilessly carved out in editing; Miss Devine is barely more than a walking talking deus ex machina despite the lingering presence of a subplot where she becomes Peter’s only adult hope outside of his domestic cage. Same goes for the bullies that exist for the voice to push Peter towards violence, then they vanish from the story and audience memory until returning to act as finale fodder.
It falls to Newman, Lizzy Caplan, and Antony Starr to wring suspense from the bare story surrounding them and boilerplate abuser templates their characters are saddled with. A regular dripfeed of gleefully gonzo twists give Caplan and Starr (really capitalizing on the familiar intensity of his Homelander menace) plenty of meat for big performances, and the two make a meal of their insidious father and mother. Philip Lozano’s shadow-swept cinematography does its best to transform the two into movie monsters, often framing them as shadowed figures and silhouettes looming over Newman.
Suddenly gushing with blood and jump scare ambushes, the final act takes a turn that will bring to mind the pulpy terror of last year’s Barbarian. It’s bound to be Cobweb’s most divisive element but whether loved or hated, Samuel Bodin’s muddy direction reduces most of the scuttling scarefest to indistinct figures pulled offscreen by a threat sculpted from the 2000s’ catalogue of the most generic horror design choices.
At just barely over 80 minutes before the incredibly abrupt ending, Cobweb might be a boon for those fresh from a double dose of heavy history and feminist fable. Or it might be a bane for horror fans realizing in real time that a promising premise was edited down to the skeleton of a movie, only the sinew of scares clinging to what’s left of a narrative. What works in this suburban gothic chiller carries the rest to a backbreaking degree, but Cobweb’s b-movie charms might win over the crowd with a taste for videostore-backshelf genre diamonds in the rough.
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