Cobweb

The Plot: Eight-year-old Peter (Woody Norman) wakes up one night, hearing sounds in his bedroom. He knocks on the wall… and gets a knock back. He then hears the voice of a little girl behind the wall, who tells him a buried secret about his family. At school, his substitute teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman) becomes concerned about his increasingly erratic behaviour. She approaches his parents Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr), who are disinterested and show no concern. To get to the bottom of what’s really happening in this house, Peter will have to face his childhood fears…

The Verdict: Arriving a bit early for Hallowe’en is Cobweb, a niftily-made and unsettling little shocker from first-time director Samuel Bodin. Set in the week leading up to Hallowe’een and on the day itself, it relates the strange goings-on in a seemingly ordinary domestic setting. Except it’s not quite that. There are secrets buried in the walls of a young boy’s house and it’s up to him to dig up the truth – however horrifying it might be to him. Having been involved with both Joy Ride and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem recently through his production company, producer Seth Rogen’s move into the horror genre plays it straight and direct. There’s no doubting here that we’re in a horror film. The setting is an old, decaying house in a seemingly empty neighbourhood, inhabited by two intensely-focused parents who are definitely a few coffins short of a graveyard. There’s also someone / some thing in the walls of the house…

Bodin’s set-up then is on familiar horror burial ground, portraying a troubled family in crisis as they attempt to keep intruders out while keeping the family secrets within. Loosely inspired by the Edgar Allen Poe short story The Tell-Tale Heart (not the only reference to the macabre writer), Cobweb revels in building up a strong atmosphere of suspicion and threat early on. The sensitive and observant Peter is not your typical child-in-peril. He’s more resourceful and strong-willed, helped along by Woody Norman’s focused performance. Initially, it seems that the real danger is from his parents. His mother swings from being loving and caring to distant and possibly dangerous. His father is just plain dangerous. Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr do wonders here with what appears to be little on the page. The way they modulate their performances to instil the threat of imminent consequences is intriguing to watch, while they brush off things like blood on an arm to Peter’s teacher. A stand-out sequence is a Hallowe’en dinner which quickly escalates with grisly consequences.

It’s a pity then that the third act can’t quite maintain that momentum of taut domestic tension. Instead, Bodin replaces it with a home invasion sub-plot that isn’t particularly necessary – other than building up the body count of course. It would be enough to just focus on what’s happening to Peter and the other characters in the house, as the screws are turned on them to breaking point. It’s a sign of a first-timer who can’t quite hold his nerve with his environment and characters, going for the obvious rather than being more selective about the narrative and how it ultimately resolves itself. Perhaps next time Bodin will have the confidence to go for broke. That said though, Cobweb is a decent and well-made first feature which builds up to a chilling conclusion. It spins a spooky web of dark secrets and hidden monsters, human and possibly inhuman. This is appealingly wrapped up in the guise of an atmospheric domestic setting that’s a hack-and-slash above the average multiplex horror.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Review by Gareth O’Connor