The Reel Review
Peter, a frightened eight-year-old, gets frustrated when his parents refuse to believe that he is hearing noises, then voices, from behind his bedroom wall. As the mystery continues to unfold, he starts to question everyone around him, in this horror/thriller.
Technically, the film looks great, with a creepy setting, effective camerawork and an unsettling score. The trouble with Cobweb is that it feels like two totally separate movies. The first hour of the screenplay from Chris Thomas Devlin (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) is the VERY slow story of a frightened young boy portrayed by an excellent Woody Norman (The Last Voyage of the Demeter), who grows increasingly paranoid about his increasingly creepy parents. The last half hour is a strange slasher film with a vengeful creature on a gnarly killing spree.
Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex, Cloverfield) and Antony Starr (The Boys, Banshee) are fine enough as the questionable parents, with Cleopatra Coleman (Infinity Pool, Dopesick) as the substitute teacher, and oddly, the only adult seemingly concerned about Peter’s well-being. Fans of gratuitous gore may enjoy Cobweb for the last 30 minutes, but most viewers will be completely put off by the tediously slow first hour, jarring tonal shift and ultimately throwaway story.
REEL FACTS
• Lizzy Caplan recently got her second Emmy nomination, for Best Lead Actress for the FX series Fleishman Is in Trouble. She was nominated for Best Lead Actress in 2014 for the Showtime series, Masters of Sex.
• Child actor Woody Norman is best known for his BAFTA-nominated performance in 2021’s C’mon C’mon.
• Cobweb was filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria.
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