Almost a week ago, when life seemed very different, KB and I went to the Unlimited Screening of Cobweb. My friend had told me it was meant to be very scary, and of course I was always up for an excuse to hide behind my boyfriend's shoulder. We also still had that hankering for something scary so off we went.
I'm not overly sure what happened to be entirely honest. All I know is at the end of that film we turned to each other and gave a look that in a nutshell said 'WTF?'
The movie obviously is tackling lots of different themes, mental illness, murder, hauntings, child abuse, etc, but it was a complete mess of all of those and I'm not sure if it was good or not. Right up until the final act I was thinking this was an alright movie and then it took a classic horror turn which used too much CGI and ruined the carefully built up plot.
To get down to it, Cobweb isn't really anything to do with spiders unless you count weird mutant children who are locked in a wall. We follow a boy called Peter as he starts hearing knocking in his wall which is scaring him and keeping him up at night. We are told of a girl who went missing on Halloween several years prior and is why his mum is so protective of him, and of course his parents dont believe him when he says someone is behind the wall.
His haunting then gets a little more bold as it begins to talk to him. This scares the poor boy further and he exhibits this behaviour at school where he is already bullied. The substitute teacher notices and starts to think that all is not right at home, she doesn't quite realise how right she is. Miss Devine visits Peter's household and mentions her concern and is waved off by Peter's weird mother. The voice in the wall then persuades Peter to stand up to his bullies which goes a bit wrong and the poor kid is then locked in the basement. This is the moment we realise that Peter's dad is just as unhinged as his mother.
Once finally allowed back to his room the voice parts with some interesting information regarding Peter's parents, leading to the discovery of the missing girl (she's not the voice in the wall) and convincing him to set her free. Peter then constructs a master plan which involves some rat poison and sets the prisoner free.
This is when things get weird and when Kieran starts trying to make me jump by squeezing my hand in time with the jump scare inducing music. The only thing that spoilt this was seeing the prisoners face as she then contorted into her true form and the horror was lost on us. Cobweb went from marginally scary to absolutely daft in a moment of seconds.
There was a lot of gore in the final act as well as attempted jump scares and daft CGI to make the stupid scary. That sounds harsh but it is true. The doll Annabelle has more hold traipsing up and down stairs then something with long matted hair crawling on the ceiling and morphing into god knows what. I'm not sure if this kid was dead and her bitterness turned her into some kind of demon which allowed this, or all that time in the wall evolved her, either way that was the movie ruined.
Regardless, it was an interesting night out. Antony Starr seems to play a nasty piece of work really well so that was fun to witness. Otherwise I wouldnt really bother with this film, the scares were lost and overdone from previous stereotypes, and even the solemn acting wasnt enough to save this film.
Overall, I give Cobweb a 3/10. It had promise, but then it let itself down. The only brightside was it allowed an excuse to cling onto my partner, but clearly not for long enough.
Has anyone seen this yet? Leave a comment on my socials with your thoughts!
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