Review of Cobweb (2023) by Rebecca31 — 29 Aug 2023

Horror fans here’s the perfect Halloween movie to start off spooky season. Cobweb is sure to scare the sh!te out of you for just under 90 minutes.

Eight-year-old Peter (Woody Norman) lives an isolated life, with no friends and kept away from normal childhood activities by his overly protective and clearly unhinged parents (Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr). Things go from bad to worse when Peter starts hearing mysterious knocking sounds coming from inside the walls of his bedroom. Dismissed by his parents, his fear intensifies and upon investigating, he begins to unravel a dark secret that his parents have kept hidden for years. Turns out having Homelander as your dad is not the scariest thing in poor Peter’s life.

What begins as a seemingly run-of-the-mill ghost story gradually takes on new levels of sinister until it’s dark secret is finally revealed. Cobweb turned out to be much more than a generic horror movie. It’s a gothic tale that’s highly atmospheric and packed full of tension that had the entire cinema gripped and more importantly scared. There’s nothing more disappointing than a horror movie that fails at it’s main task, to scare the viewer and not only does Cobweb have lots of frights packed into it, but also deals with disturbing topics that succeeds in putting you on edge right away and doesn’t let up with the sense of unease and impending dread.

Cobweb doesn’t waste a single minute. It teases various clues to you throughout and doesn’t reveal anything to you sooner than you need to. It also doesn’t waste time plotsplaining things to you. Generally you’ll always get a scarier and more interesting horror movie when you successfully build it around real-life terrors and Cobweb does that very well. It does however feel like they were unsure how exactly to end it and as a result you’re left with a rather abrupt ending. But I can forgive that because of everything else it’s got going for it.

Between The Boogeyman, Talk to Me and now Cobweb it’s been great to see more scary and original horror movies in cinemas recently. The more the better. Cobweb is a creative horror, that’s as creepy as it is twisted with a very dark theme and what more could you ask for? It’s the perfect Halloween movie and definitely recommended for the horror fans, particularly anyone who enjoyed The Shining and Barbarian.