cobweb christian movie review

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Common sense media reviewers.

Blood, death, kids in peril in too-familiar horror movie.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

While the movie has very little on its mind, the t

Even though she oversteps her bounds, Miss Devine

Miss Devine (Black actor Cleopatra Coleman) is the

Characters are killed, with huge blood spatter. De

A few uses of "f--k" and "f--kin'," plus "goddamn,

Parents need to know that Cobweb is a horror movie about a boy who discovers a strange entity living in his house, which his parents have kept secret. It has one or two inventive moments, but mostly it's a recycling of creepy clichés, with children in peril, too. Kids are seen being injured and chained in a…

Positive Messages

While the movie has very little on its mind, the theme of parents locking up their child because it was born with differences could be seen as a sobering metaphor for the way some parents react to having LGBTQ+ children.

Positive Role Models

Even though she oversteps her bounds, Miss Devine -- a teacher who notices a child in trouble and does everything she can to help -- is a fairly strong role model.

Diverse Representations

Miss Devine (Black actor Cleopatra Coleman) is the only character of color in a relatively small cast, but she's also the most positive character. She's brave, caring, and empathetic.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Characters are killed, with huge blood spatter. Dead bodies. Headless corpse. Kids in peril. Monster attacks. Bullying: One boy trips another on the school bus, shoves him to the ground, smashing a pumpkin. Jump scares. Boy appears to have fallen down stairs; broken leg. Boy using crutches slips and falls, hits his head on the floor; blood on head and hands. Boy locked in basement, chained up. Boy has bruises, cuts on face. Adult's hand cut, bleeding. Woman kicked down stairs. Older boy slammed against doorframe. Beating monster with crowbar. Scary noises. Scary stuff. Creepy kid's drawing. Rat poison, characters given poison. Piano smashing. Person vomits black stuff.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A few uses of "f--k" and "f--kin'," plus "goddamn," "for God's sake," "oh my God," "hell."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Cobweb is a horror movie about a boy who discovers a strange entity living in his house, which his parents have kept secret. It has one or two inventive moments, but mostly it's a recycling of creepy clich és, with children in peril, too. Kids are seen being injured and chained in a basement, and there are scenes of bullying. Characters are killed, and there are blood spurts, dead bodies, a headless corpse, monster attacks, characters pushed down stairs, vomiting, jump scares, scary noises, and more. Language includes a few uses of "f--k" and "f--kin'," plus "goddamn," "for God's sake," "oh my God," and "hell." Sex, consumerism, and substance use aren't issues. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (2)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 2 parent reviews

I don't know why this movie isn't being talked about.

What's the story.

In COBWEB, young Peter ( Woody Norman ) is being bullied at school, and at home, his parents -- Carol ( Lizzy Caplan ) and Mark ( Antony Starr ) -- act very strangely. At night, Peter hears taps coming from inside the wall, but whenever he tries to tell his parents, they tell him that he's just been dreaming or that the house is creaking. But substitute teacher Miss Devine ( Cleopatra Coleman ) listens to him. One night, a voice speaks to the boy, claiming to be his sister. The voice encourages Peter to stand up to those who are bullying him and says not to listen to his parents, who are evil. One night, Peter finds the door to his sister's prison and lets her out. But she's not quite what he was expecting.

Is It Any Good?

Managing just one or two genuinely creepy/cool horror moments, this disappointing movie ultimately relies too heavily on familiar visuals and themes from many other chillers and ends with a whimper. Produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg , Cobweb marks the directing debut of Samuel Bodin and the second screenplay by Chris Thomas Devlin, whose debut was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot. Together they gleefully steal classic moments from Halloween , including someone bullying a boy who's carrying a pumpkin. Even the town is called "Holdenfield," which is a little too close to Halloween 's "Haddonfield." And the monster -- a skittering, stringy-haired thing that can climb walls -- recalls the girls from The Ring , The Grudge , and more.

But even without these elements, the movie makes little sense. The parents act strange for virtually no reason, which just draws attention to the fact that they're hiding something, rather than playing it cool. And, while Coleman's Miss Devine is a welcome addition, it's not logical that she would keep showing up at Peter's house, overstepping her bounds. Finally, putting children in peril in such a careless movie leaves Cobweb all tangled up.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Cobweb 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of scary movies ? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?

How is bullying depicted? What solutions are tried? What are some other, potentially more positive ways of dealing with bullying?

Why do you suppose Peter's parents chose to hide their secret, rather than accept and love it?

Do you consider Miss Devine a role model ? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 21, 2023
• On DVD or streaming : September 12, 2023
• Cast : Lizzy Caplan , Woody Norman , Cleopatra Coleman
• Director : Samuel Bodin
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Run time : 88 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : horror violence and some language
• Last updated : December 22, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Cobweb’ on Hulu, a Derivative Monster-in-the-Closet Horror Retread

Where to stream:.

• Cobweb (2023)

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Cobweb ( now streaming on Hulu ) is one among many bump-in-the-night scarefests designed to make us break out into a cold sweat in the presence of early-20th-century wallpaper. Director Samuel Bodin helms his first feature, and aims to exploit – to paraphrase Werner Herzog – the voodoo of location with a thriller about a boy and his parents living in a haunted house, although Mom and Dad may have something to do with its hauntedness. A familiar premise, maybe, but there’s a chance it’s not a retread of a dozen horror tropes. A small chance, anyway. Very small. Wee, you might say. Very wee. 

COBWEB : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s just an old house. You have an overactive imagination. Go back to bed. Peter (Woody Norman) has heard it all from his parents, re: the thing that goes bump inside the walls of his bedroom at 1:45 a.m. He resists the gaslighting, though – he knocked three times and it knocked back. We were there, too. We heard it. And we’re not crazy, are we? All the clues point to the answer being no, considering this old house has a massive patch of rotting pumpkins in its backyard, and old ugly wallpaper that looks like it predates the revelation that asbestos is poisonous, and it really could use a good powerwashing. I mean, the siding is filthy . Mom (Lizzy Caplan), she thinks Peter is making it all up. Dad (Antony Starr), he thinks rats are scurrying around. Rats? Really? Considering the rats and the gaslighting and the parents giving off narrow-side-eye psycho-sinister vibes – and the siding, can’t forget the siding – poor little Peter probably needs to go into foster care. Somebody call CPS!

Title card: ONE WEEK BEFORE HALLOWEEN. Peter asks why he can’t go trick or treating and his parents speak in vague blather about that time before he was born when a little girl went missing on Halloween – and then they pretty much tell him to shut up and eat his dinner. It’s meat loaf. Specifically, really gross-looking meat loaf. Mom probably commits a culinary sin and makes it with ketchup. Bleeccch. Things aren’t much better for Peter at school, either. Bullies trip him and pick on him. Thank gawd for kind teachers, though; the new sub is an attentive sweetheart, Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), as in “devine intervention,” maybe. Except when Peter draws a creepy creepy picture in class of himself laying wide-eyed in the dark in bed with the words HELP ME above him, Miss Devine walks past the dirty siding and knocks on the door to express her concern, and Mom hastily shoos her away – but not before Miss Devine catches a whiff of those Sinister Vibes. Intervention denied .

Meanwhile, every night, the whatever keeps on with the thumping. And the whispering. The very loud whispering. Yes, she speaks. She. Who could it be? She has advice for Peter regarding the bully: “Make him afraid of you.” So Peter pushes the bully down the stairs and the bully learns that legs don’t bend that way. Peter gets expelled, and as punishment, Mom and Dad move the fridge to reveal a door, and open the door to reveal the basement, and take Peter down and make him stay there. Now, why is there a chain on the floor? And a grate in the floor that hinges open and looks like the perfect place to imprison a Deadite? Oh, it’s probably not nothing. His parents aren’t hiding anything and they’re just odd ducks who probably just need to tweak their childrearing tactics so everyone can live happily ever after.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Caplan would be well-cast as the Other Mother in a live-action version of Coraline . Otherwise, we saw a lot of this bump-in-the-night bull roar a couple months ago in The Boogeyman , which basically ripped off The Babadook .

Performance Worth Watching: Norman – quite good in C’mon C’mon – might be the only cast member who wasn’t told that Cobweb is essentially a cartoon. His earnestness grounds the movie and makes it a little less annoying. 

Memorable Dialogue: Mom, who really sucks, gaslights her son: “That imagination of yours, Peter. It’s going to get you in trouble one day.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: No, it’s not the Great Pumpkin who’s haunting little Peter – despite that ridiculous backyard pumpkin patch, a laughably dumb red herring in a movie that tends to throw such things around willy-nilly. I guess it contributes to Cobweb ’s eerie atmosphere, but it also contributes to its confused mess of tones: malevolent Brothers Grimm atmospherics meet goofy caricaturish characters in a story of child endangerment via gross parental malfeasance. Bodin seems to want us to laugh sometimes and feel terror at others, but I was distracted by a mortal concern for how and why the rest of the world doesn’t seem to notice that Peter’s parents are Not Right. Again: What’s the number for CPS? Another question: Why apply the logic of reality to a supernatural horror movie? Foolhardy am I.

Now, how seriously are we supposed to take this? Not very, I’d assert. The movie is more perplexing than amusing, scary or poignant. Characters are thinly rendered and the situations are all horror-movie clichés, building to a third-act climax with a few provocative shots that don’t make up for all the dim lighting and choppy edits. There are times when Chris Thomas Devlin’s screenplay almost kind of wants to tell the story from Peter’s point-of-view, which would make sense; a grade-school-age kid’s exaggerated emotions and perspectives would be a keen explanation for the film’s distortions of character and reality. Alas – alas, I say, alas – it’s not committed to that idea, an idea that might’ve differentiated the film from the scads of haunted-house/home-invasion/monster-in-the-closet thrillers. The only time I chuckled was when Peter and his parents eat the grimmest bowls of sludgy, sub-gruel soup, which verified that his nutty mother is, indeed, a terrible cook. I have a deep appreciation for scenes of tormented soup-supping, but beyond that bit, Cobweb is a dud. 

Our Call: SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

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‘Cobweb’ Review: A Film Within a Director’s Cinematic Ego Trip

Kim Jee-woon toys with the absurdity of filmmaking itself in this story of a director compelled to take his cast and crew captive to shoot one more scene.

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By Brandon Yu

To be a director is to be a madman of sorts. It’s a rare artist that has the will and belief required to pull together so many forces to create a movie, let alone a good or even great one. In other words, it’s a space only occupied, perhaps, by the delusional or self-involved.

“Cobweb,” directed by Kim Jee-woon, mines the comically absurd reality that is filmmaking, at times with bouncy cinematic verve, at others somewhat aimlessly and a little too indulgently.

In the film, set in early-1970s South Korea, a director, Kim (Song Kang-ho), desperately struggling to prove he isn’t a sham, has come up with a new ending to fix his current film that he insists will transform it into a subversive masterpiece. Working surreptitiously around his studio’s president and the government censorship agency, he reconvenes his cast and crew, boards them up in a sound stage, and gets to work on his opus. Personalities clash and antics ensue, as the movie set becomes as much of a soap opera as the movie they’re making, whose scenes are cut into “Cobweb” throughout.

Even if “Cobweb” often feels like it’s a film that is telling itself its own industry insider joke — poking fun at the competing, wounded egos of directors, actors and studio brass — Kim Jee-woon captures it all with a sleekly choreographed charm that keeps us along for the ride. Until it doesn’t. Toward the second half, the film becomes overlong, losing its narrative thread and including too many scenes of the movie being made. Eventually we feel a little trapped in the sound stage ourselves, as “Cobweb” falls victim, ironically, to its own punchline — becoming a movie that is too obsessed with itself.

Cobweb Not rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms .

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Review: Dead on arrival, ‘Cobweb’ is only frightening for how familiar it is

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That title, “Cobweb,” suggests only one cobweb, but why be stingy? This movie’s screenplay is strewn with them: dozens of dusty tendrils linking it back to older, better horror films, sometimes on a shot-by-shot basis.

It’s the week before Halloween, yet sad-eyed Peter (“ C’mon C’mon ’s” Woody Norman) barely has the inclination to ricochet a ball off his bedroom wall, Jack Torrance-style. “This is an old house — there’s bound to be bumps in the night,” says his mom (Lizzy Caplan, slumming), offering a word of comfort to either her son or any stray critics who may have wandered in.

And as surely as a boy carrying a decorated pumpkin will be pushed, face-first, to the ground by school bullies (“ Halloween ”), creepy whispers do start emanating from the beyond (“ The Black Phone ”), and you know that wall is eventually coming down, via ax blows filmed in whip-pans (“ The Shining ”). “Be careful,” Peter’s father (Antony Starr) says, in ominous silhouette. “Not everything is as sweet as it seems.”

Could it be that he’s hiding something? A quick glimpse at his suburb’s local paper, the Holdenfield Herald, locates it in the general vicinity of “Halloween’s” Haddonfield , so yes, probably. Home invaders in eerie animal masks arrive on cue, enjoying their break from “The Strangers.”

In Hollywood’s current moment of strike paralysis, triggered in part by anxieties over the potential use of AI in the writer’s room, we may be naive: Perhaps it’s already happening. Shockingly, the script for “Cobweb” made its way onto the esteemed Black List, which celebrates original unproduced work. Maybe that panel should watch some movies?

In defense of the credited writer, Chris Thomas Devlin, so much can happen between page and screen, including uninspired direction (by Samuel Bodin), twinkly insta-scoring (by Italian trip-hopper Drum & Lace) and generically murky cinematography (by Philip Lozano).

But regarding Devlin, I say produce the corpse. We already know you can kill what’s up on-screen, deadening us with your storytelling. And if “Cobweb” represents anyone’s vision of the future of horror, maybe we don’t deserve AI, either.

'Cobweb'

Rating: R, for horror violence and some language Running time: 1 hours, 28 minutes Playing: Starts July 21 in general release

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Kim Jee-woon is one of Korea’s most impressive filmmakers, a creator who likes to subvert genre and stretch the visual limits of his material in standouts like “A Tale of Two Sisters,” “The Good the Bad the Weird,” “I Saw the Devil,” and “ The Age of Shadows .” He’s a creator who always gets my attention even on television (Apple’s “Dr. Brain”) or in his one diversion to U.S. action cinema (“ The Last Stand ”). This mini-bio is all to say that if “ Cobweb ” were made by another filmmaker, it may not be as disappointing. Although it is also may have been unwatchable without Kim’s craftsmanship to hold this slap-dash comedy together as much he does.

“Cobweb” takes place almost entirely on a soundstage for a Korean horror film being shot in the 1970s by a troubled director named, of course, Kim (the amazing Song Kang-ho of “ Parasite ” fame, along with so many others). Kim is making what needs to be his masterpiece—he calls it that more than once—a black-and-white feature about stormy nights, betrayals, stabbings, and spiders. But he’s been struggling with the ending. When he rewrites to what he thinks is perfection, he struggles to get it approved by the Korean censors but decides to go forward anyway, leading to a series of almost slapstick scenes in which the cast and crew have to hide what they’re really doing from the authorities trying to shut the production down. 

Meanwhile, the actors don’t understand their new roles, and have more than their share of interpersonal drama behind the scenes to add to the tension and humor. The studio boss ( Jang Young-nam ) is being kept out of the loop; the leading man Ho-se ( Oh Jung-se ) can’t stop cheating on his wife; the young star Yu-rim (Jung Soo-jung) is hiding a pregnancy—it’s all a recipe for what they call “creative differences” in the industry.

One notable problem with “Cobweb” is that the film within the film looks like the better watch. Give me a Kim Jee-woon black-and-white joint that features giant spider webs, canted angles lit by lightning, and multiple murders. Sadly, that’s only a small part of this “Cobweb,” which is more about the webs a creator weaves when trying to make a feature film, and how easy it is for people to get caught up in a vision gone awry. Echoes of “ Ed Wood ,” “ Birdman ,” and other films about the chaos of movie sets feel intentional, but there’s a spark missing here, and a surprising lack of substance to it all. Is Kim poking fun at his art? Noting how silly it can be to make something so serious? Or is his intent more to reveal how complex his passion can be? 

It doesn’t feel like any of those questions were really asked. Instead, Kim seems to be reaching for farce, something like a Noel Coward play with Korean flair. It all looks incredible under the lens of DP Kim Ji-yong (“ Decision to Leave ”), but it keeps falling flat as the tone seems to evade Kim. There’s a slack nature to the film that almost feels like it has to be an intentional experiment from a filmmaker who has been so precise and intricate with his work in the past. It’s as if Kim is testing himself to see if he could make a self-indulgent, unsubstantial lark of a comedy. He can. Sorta. Now let’s get back to the good stuff.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Cobweb (2024)

135 minutes

Song Kang-Ho as Director Kim

Lim Soo-jung as Lee Min-ja

Oh Jung-se as Kang Ho-se

Jeon Yeo-been as Shin Mi-do

Krystal Jung as Han Yu-rim

Park Jung-soo as Madame Oh

Jang Young-nam as Chiarwoman Baek

Jung Woo-Sung as Director Shin

Um Tae-goo as Yu-rim's Boyfriend

Yeom Hye-ran as Ho-se's Wife

Kim Min-jae as Manager Kim

Kim Dong-young as Assistant Director

Kim Jae-geon as Chairman Kang

• Kim Jee-woon
• Shin Yeon-shick

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Cobweb Movie Review: New Horror Film Finds Success Sticking to the Basics

Cobweb stars woody norman and is directed by samuel bodin.

Review: Cobweb might be accused of adhering to some familiar horror tropes, but its commitment to its genre roots is what makes it stand out. The movie surpasses expectations with its tight narrative, commendable performances, and a commitment to delivering unadulterated horror.

In the cluttered landscape of contemporary studio horror, where cheap scares and formulaic narratives can often overshadow genuine creativity, Cobweb emerges as a breath of chilling, nightmarish air. Directed by Samuel Bodin in his impressive debut, the movie, now streaming on Hulu and readily available to watch at home, manages to transcend its potential trappings to deliver a concise, visceral, and surprisingly effective horror experience.

Clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes, Cobweb wastes no time immersing you into the eerie world of young Peter, convincingly portrayed by Woody Norman . Plagued by an incessant tapping from within his bedroom wall, Peter’s escalating fear becomes the focal point of a narrative that cleverly teases the line between imagination and the macabre reality that unfolds. The film’s brevity is a strength, ensuring that every moment counts, with no room for unnecessary detours.

Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan , portraying Peter’s parents, Mark and Carol, deliver performances that oscillate between strange and sinister. The palpable tension in their interactions with Peter sets the stage for a psychological thriller that keeps you guessing. Starr, known mostly for his reoccurring role in The Boys , adds an unsettling layer to his character, while Caplan’s nuanced portrayal adds depth to the mysterious dynamics within the family.

Woody Norman, as Peter, navigates the emotional complexities of his character with commendable authenticity. His portrayal captures the vulnerability of a young boy grappling with the fear of nearly everything around him, from bullying at school to a home environment that becomes increasingly unwelcoming. Norman’s performance serves as the emotional anchor of the movie, grounding the horror in the relatable struggles of adolescence.

Cleopatra Coleman , as Peter’s elementary school teacher Miss Devine, provides a welcome respite from the darkness surrounding Peter. Her character, a beacon of warmth and support in his troubled life, adds a layer of humanity to Cobweb . Coleman’s performance, though brief to start, leaves a lasting impression and highlights the film’s ability to balance moments of lightness amidst the encroaching shadows.

Cobweb might be accused of adhering to some familiar horror tropes, but its commitment to its genre roots is what makes it stand out. It unabashedly embraces its identity as a breakneck, gory, and gnarly horror movie, uninterested in unraveling grand thematic ideas. Instead, it delivers an unapologetic, blood-curdling experience that knows precisely what it wants to be—an adrenaline-pumping scare-fest.

The final 20 minutes of Cobweb are some of the best moments of horror this year, hitting the audience with a relentless barrage of cleverly designed and expertly blocked scares. The film’s monster, a creation of nightmare-inducing visual effects and contorting bodily images, lingers in the mind long after the credits roll. It’s a testament to the craftsmanship of the filmmakers and effects team that they manage to breathe new life into a genre sometimes accused of stagnation at the studio level.

Reviews for Films like Cobweb (2023)

And while Cobweb may, at a glance, appear to be another entry in the inundated market of James Wan-style horror in terms of look and cinematography, it defies expectations with its standout elements. The performances, a tight narrative, and the marriage of creepy and gory visual effects elevate it above the sea of forgettable imitations. Director Samuel Bodin showcases a keen understanding of horror’s mechanics, leaving viewers (myself included) both terrified and intrigued about his future endeavors.

Despite its slightly warm reception in theaters and the overshadowing box office of other horror juggernauts, Cobweb proves itself as a fun, harmless, and surprisingly sinister B-movie. In a year where horror has struggled to leave a lasting impact, Cobweb manages to carve its own niche, offering a thrilling experience that horror enthusiasts have been craving.

The script, penned by Chris Thomas Devlin (2022’s reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre ) might not be groundbreaking, but it serves its purpose well. Cobweb avoids the pitfalls of trying to be something it’s not, embracing its small-scale status with a refreshing self-awareness. As horror often takes itself too seriously, the film is a reminder that it can be both entertaining and sinister without the need for pretension.

Cobweb surpasses expectations with its tight narrative, commendable performances, and a commitment to delivering unadulterated horror. Director Samuel Bodin’s debut leaves an indelible mark, and while the movie may not have garnered the attention it deserves, it stands as a testament to the enduring appeal of well-executed, spine-tingling terror.

Genre: Horror

Watch Cobweb on Hulu

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Cobweb Movie Cast and Credits

Woody Norman as Peter

Lizzy Caplan as Carol

Antony Starr as Mark

Cleopatra Coleman as Miss Devine

Director: Samuel Bodin

Writer: Chris Thomas Devlin

Cinematography: Philip Lozano

Editors: Kevin Greutert ,  Richard Riffaud

Composer: Sofia Hultquist

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Cobweb review: a slight, but shockingly fun horror movie

“Samuel Bodin's Cobweb is a slight, but shockingly fun summer horror offering.”

• An intense and unforgettable third act
• Chris Thomas Devlin's twisty, darkly funny screenplay
• Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr's admirably weird supporting performances
• A thinly drawn cast of characters
• Uneven mix of horror and humor throughout
• A slightly anticlimactic final scene

Cobweb is a slow-burn horror film that spends most of its mercifully lean 88-minute runtime building tension before exploding with one of the most genuinely shocking, gleefully gruesome third acts audiences will likely see this year. It is not, by any means, a subtle film. Its opening title card, which ominously sets Cobweb ’s first scene exactly one week before Halloween, makes that clear, as does the pumpkin patch that sits in the backyard of its central family’s house for no obvious reason.

Directed by Samuel Bodin,  Cobweb is a film that wholeheartedly embraces not only its Halloween aesthetic, but also the kind of amped-up energy that would make it an absolute blast to watch in a packed theater on October 31. On the one hand, that makes its late July limited release a bit baffling. On the other hand, the film’s corny, messy tone and absolutely killer thirst for blood do give it the potential to become a new go-to sleepover horror movie. That doesn’t mean Cobweb is a great or even particularly good film, but it is a whole lot of fun.

Cobweb ‘s premise is deceptively simple: 8-year-old Peter (Woody Norman) finds himself kept awake every night by the sound of knocking coming from the other side of his bedroom wall. Unfortunately, every time he tells his overprotective parents, Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark ( The Boys ‘ Antony Starr ), about the noises, they insist that they’re nothing more than figments of his own imagination. When the nightly knocks then turn into the sound of a little girl’s voice, Peter begins to suspect that not everything he’s been told by his parents is true.

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Chris Thomas Devlin’s refreshingly spare screenplay doesn’t ever waste too much time between its various plot developments. In the film’s first scene, Peter is shaken awake by the sound of his room’s unseen knocks, but it’s only a little over 10 minutes later that those knocks have become an unlikely conversation between Peter and the little girl who seemingly lives inside his walls. It similarly isn’t long before Peter’s odd home life has not only caught the attention of his caring substitute teacher, Miss Devine (an underserved Cleopatra Coleman), but also put him at odds with his own parents.

Caplan and Starr, for their parts, lean all the way into their characters’ obvious shadiness. At no point throughout Cobweb does Bodin try to convince you that Carol and Mark aren’t hiding something. The fun of Cobweb ’s first two acts instead lies in how much the film both plays up their horrible parenting skills and forces you to constantly rethink what secrets they may be trying to keep from their son. Caplan, in particular, turns in such a frazzled, overzealous performance as Peter’s mom that it’s unclear for a while whether she’s a villain, or merely a mother incapable of communicating the love she feels for her child.

There is, of course, a danger to indulging in a slow-burn structure like the one Cobweb employs. Asking audiences to stay invested in your story even when the scares aren’t coming all that quickly or ferociously only works if you do eventually reward them for their patience. Many recent horror movies have failed to live up to their end of that bargain, but Cobweb isn’t one of them. For as tired, familiar, and obvious as its first 40 minutes may occasionally seem, the film doesn’t hold back once its lit fuse has, at long last, finally reached the end of its line.

No bombs go off in Cobweb ’s third act, but there might as well be a few that do. The film’s climactic embrace of its own heightened, nightmarish logic inevitably calls to mind recent horror classics like The Conjuring  and Hereditary . Behind the camera, Bodin never comes close to matching the bravura visual styles of those films’ directors, but he does pack more than a few memorable gags, kills, and genuinely chilling images into  Cobweb ‘s short runtime.

The director makes full use of the film’s central house in ways that are both ingenious and rewarding, and that’s especially true of one moment in which Peter’s hiding spot under his bed is used against him. The scene in question is not only unnerving, but also darkly funny, and it ends with a visual punch line that similarly rides the line between horrifying and hilarious. Ultimately, the precision of Cobweb ‘s third act only further differentiates it from the film’s first two-thirds, which fail to strike such a consistent tonal balance.

For some, Cobweb may prove to be too tonally uneven, its characters too archetypically drawn, and its performances too over-the-top. But for faithful horror fans, the pleasures that Cobweb has to offer are simple and invigorating. At times, it feels like the film has sprung forth straight from the pages of a 20th-century paperback horror novel — the kind that authors like Christopher Pike ( The Midnight Club ) and R.L. Stine ( Fear Street ) built their legacies writing.

It’s a thinly drawn, cheaply built production, but it isn’t afraid to take risks. And it’s got, at the very least, one or two surprises up its sleeve that should shock even the most keen-eyed of viewers. The film isn’t as dusty or intricate as its title suggests, either, and its teeth are sharp enough for it to take a solid bite out of anyone who gives it their time. As Cobweb ’s deliriously rendered finale proves, merely covering something up isn’t always enough to keep it hidden. On the contrary, sometimes it’s only when they’ve been locked away in the darkest recesses of our minds that our secrets become stronger — and deadlier.

Cobweb is now playing in select theaters.

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For a time, ghouls and other assorted frights landed on the back-burner as opposed to the other genres in cinema. But horror has seen something of a reprisal in the past decade thanks to filmmakers capable of tapping into our most primal fear: the fear of the unknown. Now, an entire horror universe is anchored by The Conjuring franchise created by film director James Wan. We also have a steady stream of quality horror films from powerhouse studios in the genre, like A24 and Blumhouse.

Of course, thanks to streaming, these adrenaline-inducing adventures are now at your fingertips. Patrons of Peacock have access to an eclectic variety of films and TV series. But there are a few horror sleeper hits on the service that may have flown under your radar. If you haven't seen these offerings, do yourself a favor and check them out. The Black Phone (2021)

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Movie Review – Cobweb (2023)

September 1, 2023 by Robert Kojder

Cobweb , 2023.

Directed by Samuel Bodin. Starring Woody Norman, Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr, Cleopatra Coleman, Anton Kottas, Luke Busey, Jay Rincon, Ellen Dubin, Jesse Vilinsky, Aleksander Asparuhov, James Robinson, Jivko Mihaylov, and Steffanie Sampson.

Horror strikes when an eight-year-old boy named Peter tries to investigate the mysterious knocking noises that are coming from inside the walls of his house and a dark secret that his sinister parents kept hidden from him.

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Cobweb wouldn’t exist.

Coming from director Samuel Bodin (who appears only to have shorts and television episodes to his name) and screenwriter Chris Thomas Devlin, Cobweb feels like those filmmakers accepted a challenge to cram as many tired horror tropes as they can into a movie. Worse, it’s a film with the bare bones of a story, seemingly stripped of a first act that would properly set up these characters or ground the nonstop loud noises into something worth engaging. Many of the elements introduced are intended to pay off in some way during the finale, but everything is so sloppily handled that none of it registers as compelling. Spooky sounds and supposedly scary images are meaningless and free of tension if no reason has been given to care about any of them.

What makes this frustrating is that Samuel Bodin knows how to craft sequences that would be suspenseful and potentially frightening if the narrative was up to par. Instead, he is forced to have the true villain here spout exposition during the film’s climax and final battle. One can’t help but laugh, shrugging everything off and wondering how the proceedings went this far off the rails. There is a directorial touch here, including skillful shot framing, lingering images, and mindful use of space that is wasted since nothing about the script or story feels complete. What little story is here is solely about twists and tricking the audience through illogical and cheap means.

The other huge wasted component is the small ensemble, led by young Woody Norman (who impressed majorly acting alongside Joaquin Phoenix in 2021’s C’mon C’mon ) as Peter, an introverted outcast who often finds himself bullied at school in a phony and forced fashion. His new substitute teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), is told by her superiors to stop worrying and not to interfere or approach the boy’s parents.

One night, Peter randomly starts hearing the voice of a young girl (voiced and played by Ellen Dubin, Jesse Vilinsky, and Aleksander Asparuhov in different forms) coming from beyond the wall of his bedroom. Whether it’s a real person’s voice or a ghost is a mystery, at least until the film gives away that aspect early on. Without spoiling too much, there is a neighborhood legend about this girl, which has caused Peter’s parents (played by Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan) to become overprotective and strange (the former gives a nuanced, alarming turn, whereas the latter overplays every scene). There is something untrustworthy about them from the get-go.

It’s nice to see Woody Norman get some work in between serious projects. That and the mildly competent craftsmanship on display certainly renders Cobweb watchable, but it’s also a movie where one can’t suspend disbelief or ignore the severe shortcomings in storytelling and characterization. There is practically no purpose to any of the attempted scares. If nothing else, it would be nice to see quite a few people involved with Cobweb involved in a horror project with more substance, and at a base level, subpar writing worth investing in.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★  / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Cobweb review – spidery spookiness rules in low-octane horror of creepy family life

It’s secondhand, guessable terror all the way in this uninspired scary tale that borrows all its best ideas from better films

P ity Peter (Woody Norman), the young poppet caught in the middle of Cobweb. He is being bullied at school and banned from trick-or-treating by his creepy parents (Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr), who are given to cryptic announcements (“Not everything is as sweet as it seems”) when they aren’t locking him in the cellar. Digging in his garden, he finds a skull just below the soil. As if that weren’t bad enough, the pumpkin crop is showing signs of blight. No one could blame the lad for looking forward to consoling chats with the female voice coming from within his bedroom wall, urging him to fight back against his tormentors like the boy in Let the Right One In .

On the plus side, Peter has a kindly teacher (Cleopatra Coleman) who clearly models herself on Miss Honey from Matilda, and shows up on his doorstep after the boy draws a self-portrait captioned: “Help Me”. There is also a home invasion by masked intruders, while the arachnid-related threat promised by the title materialises in the shape of a creature to which the old saying “It’s more afraid of you than you are of it” manifestly does not apply.

Capably if unvaryingly directed by French first-timer Samuel Bodin, and co-produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Point Grey Pictures, Cobweb is almost perfectly named. Cobwebbed would be more accurate, perhaps: every detail is secondhand, if not downright hoary, from a spider-walking ghoul (The Exorcist) whose face is obscured by a Rapunzel-length fringe ( The Ring ) to scuttling, speeded-up fiends (The Babadook), buried family secrets ( The Pact ) and an incongruously jaunty song over the end credits (An American Werewolf in London).

Plucky young Norman, last seen opposite Joaquin Phoenix in C’mon C’mon , holds his own impressively, but a less harried and haunted-looking kid it would be hard to find. No one involved with the film seems to have noticed that the revelation of the monster’s identity not only demands that the creature itself must narrate its own lamentable backstory but that a certain amount of victim-blaming is involved. To say more would be to reveal spoilers to the handful of viewers who don’t guess the outcome after the film’s first 10 minutes.

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‘Cobweb’ Review – Fairy Tale Horror Movie Spins a Messy, Tangled Web

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.

DSC_4897.NEF

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.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

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Baghead is the latest offering of rules-based horror. As in, the characters follow specific rules and maybe they can survive their uncanny predicament. Alberto Corredor ’s first long feature, an adaptation of his own short film of the same name, wastes no time establishing the system in which his characters must struggle. Admittedly, the high concept here is convoluted and also not executed to its fullest, but the film still manages to brew up some creepy moments as well as deliver an intriguing, not to mention fearsome antagonist.

Freya Allan ( The Witcher ) plays Iris, the struggling protagonist of Baghead . After losing her apartment, Iris inherits her estranged father’s ( Peter Mullan ) pub following his sudden passing. Soon enough, the young heir is offered a fat wad of cash by Jeremy Irvine ’s desperate and frazzled character, Neil, in exchange for access to the pub’s basement and the “woman” living down there. All incredulity is quickly swept away as Iris, Iris’ best friend Katie ( Ruby Barker ), and Neil get an up-close-and-personal look at the film’s namesake: an ancient, burlap sack wearing creature who can shapeshift into any dead person.

Baghead is quick to explain the titular creature ( Anne Müller ) and how she works; Iris’ father left behind instructions on a handy videotape. Similar to Talk to Me , people have a given amount of time — a more generous span of two minutes, in this case — where they can safely talk to the dead through Baghead. Of course, these novices go over the limit and Corredor persuasively demonstrates why doing so is a pretty bad idea. Somehow not deterred by a close brush with her own death, Iris then decides to exploit the creature’s ability for money. The main character is certainly not easy to like or even root for, but her flaws and despair also make her more compelling in the long run.

Despite being relatively new as a horror filmmaker, Corredor shows promise. He delivers a few disturbing moments (using both visual and audio means) and creates adequate suspense during the story’s summoning scenes. Baghead inevitably shakes off its slow-burn first impression and concedes to over-the-top sequences. On the downside, the film bears unflattering and clichéd digital effects. The film is at its best when a character is simply engaged with the creature, down in the dark and atmospheric basement, and the viewers watch in anticipation as these encounters methodically escalate. The cheesy VFX end up doing more harm than good.

Although it boasts several decent plot twists toward the end, Baghead still doesn’t go quite as far with its premise as it could have. There is a lot of untapped potential here. In addition, the film’s habit of heavy exposition will be a major peeve for some viewers; this film about talking to the dead perhaps talks too much. However, there is no denying the appeal and popularity of these kinds of horror films where mysteries are solvable, answers are plentiful, and precise rules are meant to be reinterpreted and broken. At the very least, Corredor’s debut is technically sound, apart from a couple of tropey and unconvincing visual effects, and both the exterior and interior of the creature are thoughtfully designed.

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Cobweb Review

01 Sep 2023

“Are they fucking with us?” That’s a question asked by a soon-to-be-mincemeat character in the final act of Cobweb — and it’s one that audience-members, too, might be asking for much of the runtime. Because in its first half, this lonely-kid-uncovers-family-secrets horror deals in so many familiar clichés that it’s hard to get a read on it. Is this level of spot-the- trope familiarity a sign of playful knowingness, or merely a lazy pile-up of horror basics? Thankfully, it turns out to be the former.

And viewed through that lens, Cobweb ends up being a fun ride — cranking up the consciously heightened imagery and increasingly hysterical performances, before finally tipping its hand and letting the bad times roll. Take, for instance, the entire patch of rotting pumpkins in poor Peter’s back garden; the creepy paintings he makes in school (“Help me!”); the voice in his wall encouraging him to do bad things. It’s all delivered at a register that suggests a sense of its own Halloween hokiness, spinning an almost del Toro-esque fairy tale about a boy who befriends the monster who speaks to him at night.

Once the truth emerges, debut director Samuel Bodin controls the chaos admirably.

It helps that the kid is C’mon C’mon ’s adorable Woody Norman — for whom you only want sunshine and rainbows, and fear he’ll get neither. But Cobweb ’s real MVP is Lizzy Caplan as Peter’s mum, going from kooky to cuckoo over the runtime. Initially she seems just a tad detached, before becoming more overtly malevolent — whether viscerally chopping up pumpkin flesh, baking emotionally manipulative happy-face cupcakes, or, er, locking her son in the basement (“We’re doing this because we love you!” she implores). With the theatrical delivery of a creaky ’50s B-movie, her turn is delightful and downright strange. Antony Starr is solid as Peter’s dad — if less effective, since we’re already so used to seeing him play thinly veiled malice as Homelander in The Boys .

Once the truth emerges, debut director Samuel Bodin controls the chaos admirably, leaning into the joyous absurdity of the reveal. He shoots the film with real style, displaying a great control of light and shadow — though the nature of the horror is better when restrained to fleeting glimpses, ultimately overexposed in the film’s final minutes. But for the most part, Cobweb is freaky fun — finding its own middle-ground between the labyrinthine twists of Barbarian , the nocturnal fantasy of Pan’s Labyrinth , and the domestic negligence of Roald Dahl’s Matilda . And most importantly: yes, it is fucking with you. Once you know it, you can allow yourself to get caught up in its tangled web.

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‘cobweb’ review: lizzy caplan in a haunted house thriller that starts strong but falls apart.

Antony Starr and Cleopatra Coleman also star in Samuel Bodin’s horror movie, with ‘C’mon C’mon’ discovery Woody Norman as the boy hearing bumps in the night.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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It effectively defies the natural family dynamic of parents as protectors of the vulnerable by giving the young protagonist, Peter (Woody Norman, from C’mon C’mon ), reason to fear his mother and father, Carol ( Lizzy Caplan ) and Mark (Antony Starr), and the audience reason to believe their seeming malevolence. The mystery at the heart of the story is how much of this is the product of what Peter’s mother calls his “overactive imagination.”

Bullied at school, Peter is a pensive, solitary kid with a mop of hair that calls to mind Danny Torrance, just as DP Philip Lozano’s insidious tracking shots around the family home take their cue from the nerve-shredding Steadicam sequences in the Overlook Hotel corridors in The Shining .

When Peter starts waking up in the middle of the night to a strange tapping sound coming from inside his bedroom walls, Carol dismisses it as the inevitable creaks and groans of any old house, this one lit in perpetual gloom to heighten the kid’s uneasiness. Mark says it’s likely rats in the walls, sprinkling poison from a large bag that pretty much announces itself as Chekhov’s gun.

Even when Peter’s kind substitute teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman) drops by to show his parents a morbid drawing the boy did in class — depicting himself in a blackened room crying “Help me” — Carol brushes her off with more irritation than concern.

But the more time Peter spends alone in his room, the more he starts communicating with the mysterious presence in the walls, which graduates from knocking to full conversations. When the disembodied voice encourages Peter to push back against Brian (Luke Busey), his bullying nemesis at school, his actions get him expelled, leading to harsh punishment from his father.

It’s at this point that the sinister side of Peter’s parents becomes virtually inarguable, and a return visit from Miss Devine causes them to respond with defensiveness that borders on hostility. When the voice coming from his bedroom wall tells Peter that his folks are not what they seem, he has no trouble believing it.

Tension escalates as more becomes known about Carol and Mark’s dark secret and the initially unseen presence in the house. But despite persuasive work from the actors, the film loses rather than gains traction. While there’s an obvious debt to Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs , the more Devlin’s screenplay does to explain the enigma behind the hidden doors and within the walls, the less coherent it all becomes.

But the filmmakers blur the lines as they reveal the hidden menace, via Aleksandra Dragova’s jittery physicality and Olivia Sussman and Debra Wilson’s contrasting voice work. The influence of Linda Blair’s famous spider walk from The Exorcist can be seen in some of the movement, and the title is a tip-off to the creepy-crawly creatures the house’s clandestine resident has been studying to hone its lethality. But is it human or supernatural, mortal or monster? Cobweb keeps the answers to those questions too vague to be satisfying.

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Cobweb Review: What A Tangled (and Scary) Web It Weaves

Cobweb spins a delightfully wicked tale about a young boy caught in a horrifying mystery.

Director Samuel Bodin’s new horror film, Cobweb , which hits theaters July 21, offers something distinctly alluring and unique — a mood, a vibe, something eerie you can't shake off, and it occupies every frame of the film. If Bodin was keen on creeping out audiences, he surely has succeeded here. Cobweb is as ethereal as it is bone-chilling fun. It’s scary, too, so feel free to feast on this mid-summer thriller with fervor.

Cobweb has everything going for it. An innocent boy feeling trapped, two tightly wound parents, and a creepy old house holding a mysterious secret inside. The tale is set around Halloween time, too, but even if screenwriter Chris Thomas Devlin ( Texas Chainsaw Massacre ) didn’t set the events in fall, my guess is that Cobweb would still delight. (On a side note: Why isn't this film being released in October?)

Cobweb is one of the more inventive and well executed horror films to come around this year . It strikes a nice balance of chills, thrills, and other creepy delights, without resorting to overt measures to rattle the senses. Bodin leaves a lot of that to the audience, who no doubt will use their own vivid imagination to fill in some of the blanks here.

Coming from the producers of Barbarian and It, and starring Lizzy Caplan ( Party Down, Fleishman Is in Trouble ), Cleopatra Coleman, Antony Starr, and young Woody Norman in a brilliant performance, you’re in good hands with these folks. But you may be surprised at what you discover.

Not Your Average Horror Film

Director Samuel Bodin was reportedly so intrigued with Chris Thomas Devlin’s script that he wanted to create a fairy-tale universe in Cobweb. He succeeds at that for the most part, as the film occasionally feels as if we’ve dropped into a foreboding Grimms' Fairy Tale where something devastating is about to happen.

Young Peter (Woody Norman) suddenly hears tapping behind the walls of his bedroom at night. He’s never heard that before; although his parents (Caplan and Starr in full chills mode) assure him that it’s just his imagination, Peter can’t quite shake it off. He has nightmares, too. But are they nightmares? Peter isn’t sure. Neither are we.

Related: Exclusive: Cobweb Director Samuel Bodin and Young Actor Woody Norman Deliver the Frights

The boy finds some solace at school in substitute teacher Miss Devine (Coleman), who senses something is off and is bold enough to head directly to Peter’s home and confront his mother, Carol. Caplan has a knack for playing deeply layered if not tormented characters. Let’s face it: she made Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction watchable. Here, she manages to take what the script gives her and add something unique. Something is off with Carol. She’s oddly overprotective of Peter.

Papa Mark (Starr) is more grounded that Carol, but there’s something icy there, too. Starr can’t quite hit the stellar beats Caplan does in her parental role, but he’s effective, nevertheless. We soon learn about a tragedy from the past—something that happened in the neighborhood. Could this be related to the tapping Peter hears in his bedroom? As the film flows toward its mid-point, Peter is confronted on all fronts. A bullying incident at school turns dire , and when Peter is confined to his home, he begins losing trust for his parents. How that plays out is a major twist in the film—a thrilling one no less and sends us into an action-packed, fright fest all the way through the ending.

Cobweb Thrills to the End

If you recall how shocked you felt watching Barbarian and how surprised you were by what you discovered along the way, Cobweb follows similar suit but manages to keep it fresh. Bodin’s use of lighting, and sometimes dimly lit scenes, pays off. To his credit, when we do finally discover what has been lurking behind the walls, the screenwriter and director never truly reveal the full form of what that is. That actually helps make Cobweb freakishly good.

Related: Horror Movies That Are Actually Scary

One could peck away at some of the film’s more obvious WTFs, where we’re supposed to suspend belief. For instance, it’s curious that a family of three would live in such a large house. Then again, maybe this family needs a big home to conceal a huge mystery. There’s also a bit of, “let’s just go with it,” when Miss Devine, a substitute teacher, seems to be lingering on at school longer than most subs would. These events take place over more than just a few days.

But these are minor points. By the time the film enters its final stage, and Peter realizes what truly is happening, it’s so shocking that you may find yourself on the edge of your seats. It’s rare that a horror film captures that sensation these days. Audiences have been incredibly desensitized with every Insidious and Saw film that hits the screen. The film's powerful ending will surely generate buzz as Bodin leans into the psychological horror of things. Well done.

Cobweb is a thrilling delight. It’s interesting and frightening. And that’s the perfect web to find yourself captured in when watching a horror film. Cobweb, a Lionsgate release, opens in theaters July 21.

‘Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy’ Review: A Scary Look at the Potential Soldiers of a Second Trump Reign

The followers of Christian Nationalism want a theocracy. Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones's chilling film suggests that another Trump presidency could help them get it.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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In 2017, Trump, once he took the reins of power, was constrained — by the other branches of government, and by the rule of law. He didn’t become the explicitly, committedly anti-democratic figure he is now until the 2020 election, when his declaration that he was actually the winner, and that Joe Biden had stolen the election, became the new cornerstone of his ideology. In the intervening period, Trump has been setting himself up to rule the United States as an authoritarian leader, and that meshes perfectly with the goals of Christian Nationalism, a movement that’s built around the dream of transforming America into a theocracy: a Christian nation ruled by a higher power than the Constitution — that is, by the will of God, as interpreted by his white Christian followers.

The alliance between Trump and Christian Nationalism is a profound one. Progressives tend to be focused, to the point of obsession, on the hypocrisy of the alliance — the idea that men and women who are supposedly devoted to the teachings of Jesus Christ could rally behind a sinner and law-breaker like Trump, who seems the incarnation of everything they should be against. The documentary fills in their longstanding justification: that Trump is seen as a modern-day version of King Cyrus, a pagan who God used as a tool to help the people. According to this mode of opportunistic logic, Trump doesn’t need to be a pious Christian; his very recklessness makes him part of a grander design. The Christian Nationalists view Trump much as his disgruntled base of working-class nihilist supporters have always viewed him — as a kind of holy wrecking ball.    

But, of course, that’s just the rationalization. “Bad Faith” captures the intricacy with which Trump, like certain Republicans before him, has struck a deal with the Christian Right that benefits both parties. In exchange for their support in 2016, he agreed to back a slate of judicial appointees to their liking, and to come over to their side on abortion. Trump’s victory in 2016, like Reagan’s in 1980, was sealed by the support of the Christian Right. But what he’s promising them this time is the very destruction of the American system that they have long sought.   

The most chilling aspect of “Bad Faith” is that, in tracing the roots of the Christian Right, the movie colors in how the dream of theocracy has been the movement’s underlying motivation from almost the start. In 1980, when the so-called Moral Majority came into existence, its leader, Jerry Falwell, got all the attention. (A corrupt quirk of the movement is that as televangelists like Falwell, Pat Robertson, and, later on, Joel Osteen became rich and famous, their wealth was presented as evidence that God had chosen them to lead.) But Falwell, despite the headlines he grabbed, wasn’t the visionary organizer of the Moral Majority.

That was Paul Weyrich, the owlish conservative religious activist who founded the hugely influential Council for National Policy, which spearheaded the structural fusion of Christianity and right-wing politics. He’s the one who went to Falwell and Robertson and collated their lists of supporters into a Christian political machine that could become larger than the sum of its parts. The machine encompassed a network of 72,000 preachers, it employed sophisticated methods of micro-targeting, and its impetus was to transform Evangelical Christianity into a movement that was fundamentally political. The G.O.P. became “God’s own party,” and the election of Reagan was the Evangelicals’ first victory. We see a clip of Reagan saying how he plans to “make America great again,” which is the tip of the iceberg of how much the Trump playbook got from him.

Randall Balmer, the Ivy League historian of American religion who wrote the book “Bad Faith,” is interviewed in the documentary, and he makes a fascinating point: that there’s a mythology that the Christian Right was first galvanized, in 1973, by Roe v. Wade — but that, in fact, that’s not true. Jerry Falwell didn’t deliver his first anti-abortion sermon until 1978. According to Balmer, the moment that galvanized the Christian Right was the 1971 lower-court ruling on school desegregation that held that any institution that engages in racial discrimination or segregation is not, by definition, a charitable institution, and therefore has no claim to tax-exempt status.

This had an incendiary effect. Churches like Jerry Falwell’s were not integrated and didn’t want to be; yet they also wanted their tax-exempt status. It was this law that touched off the anti-government underpinnings of the Christian Right, much as the sieges of Ruby Ridge and Waco became the seeds of the alt-right. And it sealed the notion that Christian Nationalism and White Nationalism were joined at the hip, a union that went back to the historical fusion of the two in the Ku Klux Klan’s brand of Christian terrorism.

“Bad Faith” makes a powerful case that Christian Nationalism is built on a lie: the shibboleth that America was originally established as a “Christian nation.” It’s true to say that the Founders drew on the moral traditions of Judeo-Christian culture. Yet the freedom of religion in the First Amendment was put there precisely as a guard against religious tyranny. It was, at the time, a radical idea: that the people would determine how — and what God — they wanted to worship. In truth, Christian Nationalism undermines not only the freedoms enshrined by the Constitution but the very concept of free will that’s at the heart of Christian theology. You can’t choose to be a follower of Christ if that belief is imposed on you.

Reviewed online, April 2, 2024. Running time: 88 MIN.

• Production: A Heretical Reason Productions, Panarea production. Producers: Stephen Ujlaki, Chris Jones. Executive producers: Peter D. Graves, John Ptak, Mike Steed, Todd Stiefel.
• Crew: Directors: Stephen Ujlaki, Chris Jones. Screenplay: Stephen Ujlaki, Chris Jones, Alec Baer. Camera: Bill Yates, Pilar Timpane, Trevor May. Editor: Alec Baer, Chris Jones. Music: Lili Haydn, Jeremy Grody.
• With: Peter Coyote, Elizabeth Neumann, Randall Balmer, Ken Peters, Eboo Patel, Katherine Stewart, Samuel Perry, Russell Moore, Rev. William Barber II, Linda Gordon, Jim Wallis, Lisa Sharon Harper, Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, Anne Nelson, Brent Allpress, John Marty.

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1955, Drama, 2h 4m

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The cobweb   photos.

At a psychiatric clinic for the elite, Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) wants to institute a policy of self-governance among his patients. To further his goals, Dr. McIver proposes that residents collaborate to design and make new drapes for the clinic library. Though it seems inconsequential, trouble ensues when the clinic patients become locked in a power struggle with the equally unbalanced staff, including activities director Meg Rinehart (Lauren Bacall).

Genre: Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Producer: John Houseman

Writer: John Paxton , William Gibson

Release Date (Theaters): Jun 7, 1955  original

Release Date (Streaming): Sep 25, 2016

Runtime: 2h 4m

Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Production Co: Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Cast & Crew

Richard Widmark

Dr. Stewart "Mac" McIver

Lauren Bacall

Meg Faversen Rinehart

Charles Boyer

Dr. Douglas N. Devanal

Gloria Grahame

Karen McIver

Lillian Gish

Victoria Inch

Steven W. Holte

Susan Strasberg

Oscar Levant

Paul Stewart

Dr. Otto Wolff

Tommy Rettig

Vincente Minnelli

John Paxton

Screenwriter

William Gibson

John Houseman

Jud Kinberg

Associate Producer

Leonard Rosenman

Original Music

George J. Folsey

Cinematographer

Harold F. Kress

Film Editing

E. Preston Ames

Art Director

Cedric Gibbons

F. Keogh Gleason

Set Decoration

Edwin B. Willis

Critic Reviews for The Cobweb

Audience reviews for the cobweb.

Minnelli managed to assemble an all star cast for such a strange concept. On paper it would seem like the plot of a screwball comedy but the movie is played completely straight, and is all the worse for it. You'll be screaming at the characters to lighten up. None of them are particularly likable, neither inmates or administrators. You would think someone with as much experience of clinics as Minnelli had, thanks to his estranged wife, would give us more of an insight. The patients just aren't convincing enough and are reduced to big name extras. The administrative staff are given cliched storylines to follow. If there are any central characters it's Widmark and Grahame, a bickering married couple. Bacall is completely wasted in a throwaway role as a chain-smoking activities director. Levant is perfectly cast as an inmate but doesn't get enough screen time to exploit his melancholy persona. Perhaps the movie would have fared better had it been made twenty years later. With it's sprawling cast it resembles the films of Altman but Minnelli couldn't call on the technology that allowed Altman his famous overlapping dialogue. Considering the subject matter the movie is far too sane. A seventies version would have allowed a lot more freedom to explore the issues. At one point, young inmates Kerr and Strasberg leave the clinic for a night at the cinema. A metaphor perhaps for Minnelli's plunging himself into his work to escape the grim reality of life with Judy? There have been some great movies set on psychiatric wards, "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest", "Shock Corridor", but I wouldn't bother booking yourself in for treatment here.

It's all about the DRAPES!!!! Truly odd film is loaded with great actors and a ludicrous story. How it ever got the green light from the studio is mystery number one, that Vincente Minnelli said okay to directing it is the second although that would explain why so many great actors allowed themselves to be involved. Laughable take on mental health but good for one fun viewing as a camp catastrophe.

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‘The First Omen’ Review: Damien’s New Origin Story Conceives of a Majestically Messy Franchise Future

Alison foreman.

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What to expect when you’re expecting … the Antichrist?

Filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson delivers her gleefully gruesome answer to that increasingly popular question in 20 th Century’s terrifying and triumphant “The First Omen.” It’s a nominally named soft franchise reboot and the vastly superior (if accidental) answer to Neon’s “Immaculate” with Sydney Sweeney , also in theaters now.

In “ The First Omen ,” Nell Tiger Free stars as Margaret, an American nun in training come to teach at an ill-fated orphanage in Rome. Serving under a strict mother superior (Sônia Braga), Margaret was called to the school by a cardinal she’s known since childhood (Bill Nighy) and soon runs into a troubled girl (Nicole Sorace) who oddly reminds her of herself. Paradigm-shifting for Margaret and “The Omen” franchise, it’s this relationship that makes up the meat of the movie; if you can watch these two talk on a bench, you’ll follow the plot just fine. Related Stories The Los Angeles Festival of Movies Is Ready to Do the Impossible in LA: Build Local Film Community Overlook Returns for Four Days of Horror in New Orleans: Inside the Genre Festival’s Glowing Lineup

Still, for the unindoctrinated, it’s worth knowing the basics. Stevenson’s giallo-inspired (*) prequel takes place just a few months before the start of Richard Donner’s 1976 masterwork. Those classic horror beats — grayer and distinctly more British in pallor — center on a U.S. ambassador, his unlucky wife, and a still pint-sized Son of Satan residing in London.

(*There comes a time in most Rome-set horror movies when you have to ask yourself: Is this supposed to look like a giallo — or is that actress just well-lit and Italian? One such moment arrives about a third of the way into “The First Omen.” As Margaret’s stunning roommate and fellow wannabe nun Luz, played by Maria Caballeler, lounges on her bed, she’s covered in a prismatic pool and it’s definitely giallo.)

Freak accidents, animal attacks, recreational sports injuries, and the occasional aneurysm have punctuated “The Omen” screenwriter David Seltzer’s nostalgic but sometimes fallible and forgettable universe. As radical as the Emmy-winning “Prey” with as many of its own sequel possibilities as the smash hit series midquel “Saw X,” “The First Omen” ticks all the boxes of a justified IP revisitation that arguably should get more chapters becausse it improves what came before it.

From a screenplay co-written by Stevenson, Tim Smith, and Keith Thomas with a story by Ben Jacoby, the unholy conception of Damien Thorn for “The First Omen” doubles as the basis for Stevenson’s feature directorial debut — releasing intense scares at a contraction-like pace, before giving birth to a last act no one could forget. It’s also the rare prequel (sequel, requel, what have you) that fits seamlessly inside the existing franchise and makes tracks toward a chilling new future. In short, it births something new and genuinely scary. Remember when that wasn’t so rare?

Distributed by 20th Century Studios, “The First Omen” is in theaters on Friday, April 5 .

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