"Cobweb" a grim, twisted horror fable made with elegant style

Cobweb (2023)

Most children can hopefully feel protected by their own parents when they have a bad dream or find themselves in actual peril. Director Samuel Bodin confidently turns that idea on its head with his first feature coming off Netflix’s horror series “Marianne.” Made from breadcrumbs of 1989’s “Parents,” 1991’s “The People Under the Stairs,” and 2022’s “Barbarian,” “Cobweb” gooses and bumps as its own grim and twisted horror fable with a classically creepy garnish.

Sensitive 8-year-old Peter (Woody Norman) is awoken each night by a tapping noise on the wall of his bedroom. His parents, Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr), insist the literal bumps in the night are just part of his wild imagination. But come on, the old house they live in looks like a complete fixer-upper or a creaky haunted house with a rotten pumpkin garden out back. Or, are Peter’s parents actually just the lesser of two evils? Either way, Peter’s new substitute teacher Miss Devine (an impossibly kind Cleopatra Coleman in the “Miss Honey” role) is keenly aware of her student’s withdrawn behavior being a cry for help, and she’s about to find out what’s actually going on at home. 

For the first half of the film, “Cobweb” toys with the idea of whether or not Mom and Dad are actually to be feared, or if there is a fiendish secret hidden away in the wall, or if Peter really does just have an overactive imagination. Chris Thomas Devlin’s script is so streamlined without any time for filler, or even a nuanced metaphor for child abuse, and shaved down to the bare essentials. The narrative simplicity works, but thematically, it does leave one wanting for deeper ideas. Stylistically, though, the film is immaculate. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com.

Grade: B

Lionsgate is releasing “Cobweb” (88 min.) in theaters on July 21, 2023.