Director Samuel Bodin established a talent for crafting bone-chilling scares with “Marianne,” a series that saw a fairy tale nightmare spill over into waking life for its protagonists. For his follow-up, Cobweb, Bodin steps further into the realm of fairy tales for a gateway horror effort that plays like a bedtime story. In the severing of reality, though, Cobweb spins a messy web.
Eight-year-old Peter (Woody Norman) suffers night terrors that have his parents, Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr), at their wit’s end. Peter’s insistence that something’s inside his bedroom walls tapping all night long gets chalked up to an active imagination. The sounds become more consistent, and Mom and Dad’s peculiar reactions to Peter’s claims instill suspicion. Not helping the mounting mistrust is Peter’s school life, where his peers bully him. Peter’s new substitute teacher, Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), takes notice and begins to suspect foul play at home. It becomes clear that Peter’s home harbors a disturbing secret that will jeopardize them all.
Bodin, working from a script by Chris Thomas Devlin, dislodges Peter’s story from reality through editing that captures the cadence of nursery rhymes. As effective as this style choice can be in immersing viewers into a fairy tale world, it’s also disorienting when trying to find a foothold in this small world. The rhythmic editing distorts reality to the point of showing rough seams. Scenes of Miss Devine worrying over Peter from her classroom as the sun shines through the blinds get intercut with bursts of Peter getting locked away in a darkened basement for bedtime, removing any ordered semblance of time and space. In another, Peter inexplicably has a bloodied chin, only for the next scene to feature a bully pushing Peter down on the playground, where he scrapes his chin. The choppy, rhythmic flow and fairy tale vibe takes precedence over continuity or reality-based rules, which can polarize if you’re not on its wavelength.
Because this is more of a gateway horror movie, don’t expect the same level of visceral scares as Bodin’s previous effort. While Cobweb does inject a few nightmare sequences to terrorize Peter, the horror remains firmly rooted in the psychological until its finale. Devlin’s screenplay leans into the ambiguity of Carol and Mark to breed paranoia, and it’s bolstered by Caplan and Starr’s performances. The pair toggle between loving yet strict parents and terrifying captors in a blink. It serves as a frequently suspenseful distraction for Peter, but savvy audiences will be able to see this story’s trajectory long before the answers come. Norman plays Peter with the precise type of endearing naivety and sweetness that instills rooting interest. Cobweb is less certain how to organically weave in Coleman’s character, no matter how empathetic or nurturing.
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The simplicity of Cobweb leaves everything exposed. The intimate story, told mostly from the confines of Peter’s dreary home or occasionally the school room, makes style choices more pronounced. The influence of John Carpenter’s Halloween hangs heavy over Cobweb, right down to the town’s name or a recreation of a bullying scene featuring a pumpkin. Yet, Cobweb couldn’t be further removed in tone or subgenre, and Bodin never manages to justify the connection in a cohesive way. There’s no specificity to this world or its matter-of-fact storytelling.
Horror is hot at the box office, reflected in an emerging wave of commercially appealing horror with broad appeal. Cobweb continues that streak with familiar scares designed for mainstream audiences. Bodin presents a simple story made more complicated by disorienting editing and loose rules. The committed cast, suitably spooky production design, and Grimm fairy tale vibes do set it apart, with a lively finale unafraid to spill some blood. That’ll be enough for many, but seasoned horror fans might find themselves perplexed by this messy gateway horror entry caught in a tangled web of strange storytelling choices.
Cobweb releases in theaters on July 21, 2023.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.
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