Barbenheimer. It’s what’s ruling the internet right now as we roll into the premiere weekend for both Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Rightly so, as they are two of the biggest films of the summer. And also because both simply look great. It’s attention well-deserved! That said? There’s another new film rolling out into theaters this week: Cobweb!
The word cobweb carries with it an instant mental image and feeling. Something dirty and sticky, often from the dark, that clings to you no matter how hard you try to get rid of it. This is an apt description for the movie that director Samuel Bodin (Marianne) and writer Chris Thomas Devlin (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’22) have afterbirthed into the world this week. They have unleashed an dark suburban fairy tale here, not unlike other recent terror fare like Don’t Breathe, Barbarian, and The Black Phone. If you’re sitting there thinking “All of those movies have more to them than meets the eye,” well, you’re right. So too does Cobweb, but I’m not going to spoil its secrets for you.
Here we follow a young boy named Peter (Woody Norman, The Last Voyage of the Demeter). Peter has trouble sleeping, as there are strange knocks and eventually a voice coming from his bedroom wall in the dead of night. Is it just his imagination running amok? That’s what his parents tell him. Or is it something else? Might there really be something in the wall? Is Peter going crazy. Oh, the possibilities!
You’ve seen and/or read this story before. There’s nothing overly original about any of it. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the core cast in here is firing on all cylinders from top to bottom. Woody Norman is great as the terrified and confused Peter; attempting to get to the bottom of the mystery that might literally reside in the heart of his home. Party Down‘s Lizzy Caplan is fantastic as his broken and equally afraid mother and I don’t have to tell you how imposing Banshee‘s Antony Starr is as his ill-tempered dad. If you’ve seen The Boys, then you know that Starr has no problem turning up the menace meter in his performance. Lastly, we have Cleopatra Coleman (The Last Man on Earth) has Peter’s concerned teacher, who begins to worry about the boy’s homelife after he exhibits troubling behavior at school.
In conjunction with their stellar cast, Bodin and Devlin do an effective job of ratcheting up both the tension and the creep factor as the film rolls along for its first two acts. Once thing hit the aforementioned turn, the film kicks into high-gear with a pretty satisfying finale. If I have one major complaint, it’s that the film seems to stop about 5 to 10 minutes before it should, but that’s a nitpick. Cobweb might not be an instant classic like X or Barbarian, but it’s still a pretty great little slice o’ new horror and should do the trick if you give it a chance.
Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that Lionsgate isn’t actually taking this film wide. While it might not be a big gun genre entry like the upcoming Saw X, with a better release date, a bit more marketing, and a wider shot, this could probably have made Barbarian-sized money. I guess they’re maybe a bit gunshy after both Prey for the Devil and The Blackening failed to rake in the dough in a sizable way? Regardless, I think it’s a mistake and one they might realize for themselves once it hits VOD and folks can start watching it en masse closer to spooky season. If you don’t have playing theatrically in your area, you’ll want to keep an eye out for it when it hits digital on down the line.
Cobweb is an original horror film. It was directed by Samuel Bodin, from a screenplay by Chris Thomas Devlin. The film was produced by Jon Berg, Evan Goldberg, Roy Lee, Seth Rogen, and James Weaver. It stars Woody Norman, Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr, Cleopatra Coleman, Luke Busey, Olivia Sussman, Debra Wilson, and Aleksandra Dragova.
The Schlocketeer 