Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal
In hindsight, Cobweb never stood a chance. Released on July 21, 2023, the same day as a couple other movies called Barbie and Oppenheimer, its box office numbers were so dismal that they weren’t even reported, amid the combined Barbenheimer domestic take of $244 million that opening weekend. Lionsgate likely should’ve known better than to release a movie of any kind amid a cultural phenomenon like Barbenheimer, but they absolutely should’ve known better than to release a horror movie in the middle of summer as opposed to October. Not only is Samuel Bodin’s directorial debut a horror movie set during Halloween but it’s one so steeped in spooky season that the central family literally has a pumpkin patch in their backyard. Even though it got demolished at the box office worse than Tommy Doyle’s pumpkin in Halloween, Cobweb remains creepy crawly fun worth spinning up on streaming.
The film stars C’mon C’mon breakout Woody Norman as Peter, a shy and sensitive third-grader who lives under the overly-vigilant eye of his mom Carol (played by Lizzy Caplan) and dad Mark (played by Antony Starr). His school life suffers due to class bully Brian (Luke Busey) and his home life suffers from the stifling control of his parents. Thankfully, he gets some respite in the form of substitute teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), who recognizes his troubled inner life and shows him more attention. One night, Peter begins to hear scratching on the other side of his bedroom walls and, along with it, a voice claiming to belong to a sequestered sister of whom he was never made aware. As more nights pass, their conversations grow more in-depth and the voice pushes Peter to stand up both to his parents and the bully at school.
An early intertitle indicates Cobweb begins one week before Halloween, although there are so many visual clues to this throughout the movie that it may not even be necessary to say. If a moonlit shot of the abundance of pumpkins in Peter’s family’s backyard isn’t enough, a creaking swing in the forefront dancing amid the autumn breeze should help drive things home. There are several jack-o-lantern carvings and costumed kiddos abound, in addition to spooky accoutrements like a ridiculously oversized witch hat that Miss Devine sports in class on day. Italian electronic composer Drum & Lace has fun setting the tone on the sonic side of things, staccato strings and hollow marimbas leaving plenty of space in between the notes for tension to creep in.
The melancholy music also stages Cobweb as less of a conventional frightfest and more of a dark fairytale from the perspective of a troubled child trying to make sense of his world. We spend the majority of the movie inside Peter’s home but the production design intentionally makes the rooms appear larger than they actually would be. Numerous establishing shots give us a sense of the ramshackle house’s size but when we go inside, the interiors are impossibly large compared to what we’ve seen from the outside. The effect created is that we’re seeing these spaces through the eyes of Peter, with wide shots casting gargantuan silhouettes and shadows atop the eldritch wallpaper. When we’re small, the rooms in which we spend the most time feel massive but as we grow up, they get smaller and smaller. The visual personification of this concept lends itself to beautifully haunting set design.
The trio of main actors in Cobweb also do a fantastic job making this off-kilter world make its own kind of sense. Lizzy Caplan may still be better known for her presence in comedies like Mean Girls and The Interview but she’s also honed her creep chops on TV in series like Castle Rock and Fatal Attraction. It’s perfect prep for her role here as an overbearing mother who can just barely pass for normal in public but doesn’t bother to conceal her crazy around Peter and Mark. She stresses all the wrong words in her sentences and her emotional reactions to almost every situation are difficult to predict. Even more disconcerting is Antony Starr, effortlessly channeling the psychopathy of his Homelander character from The Boys to this officious father role. “Not everything’s as sweet as it seems,” he warns Peter as they prep cinnamon-scented rat poison for pest control.
Lest one get the sense that Cobweb is too much of a slow burn, it has more than its fair share of jump scares and nightmare scenes before we get to the satisfyingly gnarly conclusion. Up until that point, only a few swear words keep the movie from a PG-13 rating but Samuel Bodin goes hard in the proverbial red paint when it comes to the gore and lethality on display during the final extended setpiece. It’s a welcome contrast in tone to the more chilling and staid tenor that envelops everything preceding it. In that way, it calls to mind the darkly fantastical work of Guillermo del Toro, specifically Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone. Cobweb isn’t quite as strong as either of those chillers but at 88 minutes, it’s easy to get wrapped up in its dark delights as the seasons change.