31 Days of Horror: Cobweb will give you the creepy-crawlies
When I first saw the trailer for Lionsgate’s Cobweb back in 2023, I was intrigued. It had dark childhood fantasy horror vibes similar to Coraline, and I thought I would probably catch it in a theatre. Unfortunately, I didn’t, and only watched it for the first time last Halloween. I regret that, because it would have been great to watch it on a big screen in a dark theatre.
The film begins a week before Halloween (thereby proving it’s perfect for viewing in October), when we meet 8-year-old Peter. He’s a shy, quiet boy, and we instantly see him as troubled. He is a target for school bully Brian, but he is lucky enough to have a kind and sympathetic substitute teacher named Miss Devine.
Peter really wants to go trick-or-treating, but his parents have never let him go. They say it’s because a little girl in the neighborhood disappeared on Halloween night years ago. And let’s just be honest here – Peter’s parents are weird. Something about them makes them appear guilty of something, but we just don’t know what.
Peter paints a picture at school that causes Miss Devine some concern – rightfully so, because it is him in bed in his pitch black bedroom, and “Help Me” is written on it. That’s because Peter hears noises behind the wall in his room at night, and a voice that speaks to him by name. The voice says her name is Sarah. That would be enough to terrify an adult, let alone a child. But Mom just blames the picture on her son’s overactive imagination.
When Miss Divine visits Peter’s mother to share her concern over the painting, the events in Cobweb start to amp up, and we just don’t know who to trust. Is the voice behind the wall in Peter’s room telling the truth when she says his parents put her there? Something is definitely up with them, they even lock Peter up in the basement when he gets in trouble for finally standing up to Brian at school.
Luckily, he has Miss Devine on his side, and she shows up just as everything horrific starts to go down in the final third of Cobweb. This film features an extremely strong performance by young Woody Norman as the achingly sad and vulnerable Peter, and Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr and Cleopatra Coleman are great as Peter’s parents and Miss Devine.
Cobweb is such a good, spooky movie, and has some really fantastic special effects. Be warned, there are lots of spiders, and when we finally see Sarah, it’s a shock.
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