Cobweb (2023)

Cobweb is a lean domestic horror film from director Samuel Bodin, working from a script by Chris Thomas Devlin that landed on the 2018 Black List. Eight-year-old Peter hears tapping inside his bedroom wall. His parents insist it is imagination. It is not imagination. The film proceeds with the efficiency of a well-oiled trap, and it never once stops to explain how we ought to feel about the world beyond the walls of that house. There is something almost restful about that.

The ensemble is mixed in the unremarkable way of a film that simply cast competent actors. Cleopatra Coleman plays Miss Devine, the substitute teacher who becomes Peter's ally, and she is good in the role without the screenplay ever treating her presence as a statement. Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr do fine work as parents whose cruelty is specific and personal, not systemic. The film has no thesis about gender, no thesis about race, no thesis about class. Its monster is a daughter locked away for being born deformed, and the film uses that disfigurement for pure revulsion, the opposite of any contemporary body-positive instinct. We are meant to recoil, and we do.

What remains is atmosphere and a handful of nasty ideas. The basement pit, the grandfather clock, the voice that shifts from frightened child to something older and colder. Bodin keeps it tight. The result is a scare machine with no sermon attached, and in a landscape of films eager to educate, that restraint reads as almost quaint. It is not a great film. It is a clean one. The tapping stops, eventually. The silence afterward is the only message on offer, and it is enough.

A note on classification. No Academy Awards, no prior installment, no source text, no real events, no capes, and a limited release that never reached the top of the domestic chart. The tags are empty, which suits a film this uninterested in belonging to anything larger than itself.

This review is provided for cultural taxonomy purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation, endorsement, or critical judgment binding on any party. All classifications are provisional and subject to revision upon further viewings, mood, or the discovery of additional footage. The author accepts no liability for decisions made on the basis of the above, including but not limited to the decision to watch the film, to avoid the film, or to discuss the film at a dinner party. Thematic tags are supplied as an analytical convenience and should not be construed as a claim of objective fact. Woke scores, where referenced, are the product of a proprietary rubric and are not intended to measure artistic merit, moral worth, or the personal character of any cast or crew member. Cobweb remains the property of its rights holders. The wall remains closed. The tapping, for now, has stopped.

{"review": "Cobweb is a lean domestic horror film from director Samuel Bodin, working from a script by Chris Thomas Devlin that landed on the 2018 Black List. Eight-year-old Peter hears tapping inside his bedroom wall. His parents insist it is imagination. It is not imagination. The film proceeds with the efficiency of a well-oiled trap, and it never once stops to explain how we ought to feel about the world beyond the walls of that house. There is something almost restful about that.

The ensemble is mixed in the unremarkable way of a film that simply cast competent actors. Cleopatra Coleman plays Miss Devine, the substitute teacher who becomes Peter's ally, and she is good in the role without the screenplay ever treating her presence as a statement. Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr do fine work as parents whose cruelty is specific and personal, not systemic. The film has no thesis about gender, no thesis about race, no thesis about class. Its monster is a daughter locked away for being born deformed, and the film uses that disfigurement for pure revulsion, the opposite of any contemporary body-positive instinct. We are meant to recoil, and we do.

What remains is atmosphere and a handful of nasty ideas. The basement pit, the grandfather clock, the voice that shifts from frightened child to something older and colder. Bodin keeps it tight. The result is a scare machine with no sermon attached, and in a landscape of films eager to educate, that restraint reads as almost quaint. It is not a great film. It is a clean one. The tapping stops, eventually. The silence afterward is the only message on offer, and it is enough.", "thematic_tags": []}