Cobweb (Frightfest 2023) review

By David Dent

Samuel Bodin’s debut feature is mean and twisted, and incredibly derivative of other genre movies. But please don’t let that put you off: this guy knows exactly what he’s doing.

In a quiet mid-western town, whose name is very similar to Haddonfield, wide-eyed tousle haired little Peter (Woody Norman) is bullied at school, but things at home are equally problematic. It’s a week to go until Halloween, but Peter’s starchy parents, Mark and Carol (Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan), don’t celebrate the season despite having a backyard full of rather sorry-looking pumpkins.

At night, Peter hears sounds behind the walls, noises – of course – not heard by his parents, who instead blame his overactive imagination. The sounds coalesce into a voice who becomes the only friend he has in the world, outside of school supply teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman) who suspects potential abuse at home. Peter’s parents are definitely strange; their punishment for his cri de cœur Halloween painting at school – a dark mess with the words ‘Please Help Me’ on it – lands him a spell locked in the basement. They do tough love pretty well, but it’s hard to get a read on their real motivations.

So what’s going on? Well that would be telling, suffice to comment that Cobweb’s scant 88 minutes takes us on a brisk ride via The Babadook, the urban comedy/horror gothic of Hereditary, old school J-horror and, thematically, Carpenter’s Halloween. What Bodin very effectively does is to openly acknowledge these sources while having a bloody – literally – good time picking and mixing his influences. Cobweb’s beginnings, all childhood anxieties and fairytale bad parenting, slowly give way to something way darker, announced by a very effective scene mid way through the movie (well it gave this reviewer the wim wams at any rate) which changes up the film’s gear. Peter’s discovery of exactly what is making the sounds he hears may take us into more straightforward jump scare territory – and it probably doesn’t do to think too deeply about some of the plot inconsistencies – but by this time our cages have been collectively rattled by the movie’s overall feeling of ‘offness’ so we don’t feel short changed. I really liked Cobweb; it gets on with the job, it wrong foots effectively; and it scares.

Cobweb hits UK cinemas on 1 September 2023.