I first became aware of Cobweb through a rare positive modern horror review from the boys (well, no longer “boys” I guess) of Red Letter Media. Like them, I am shocked by the distributor’s decision to drop this film into theaters in late July, right at the height of Barb–enheimer madness; we often treat this spooky time of the year as the default season for horror movies, but this is a Halloween movie if ever there was one, taking place in the lead up to and on Halloween Night. It’s the perfect little quiet piece of nasty work to end the season, if you haven’t already decided what the last stop on your horror train will be this year. 

Mark (Antony Starr, of The Boys) and Carol (Lizzy Caplan) are bad parents, the kind of bad parents that you’ve met before. Mark is charming in a way that wears off very quickly, as his facade of joviality is as paper-thin as his rictus grin is reptilian. Carol seems to live in constant fear of the potential for Mark to become violent, but despite that she withers beneath her husband’s cold fury, she is capable of cruelty all on her own, and her constant fretting over the locking of doors implies deeply rooted issues. As a result, elementary-aged Peter (Woody Norman) is a shy, withdrawn, and bullied child, a fact that is accentuated by how much smaller he appears to be in comparison to his classmates. He gets a new substitute teacher in the form of Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman) just in time for a series of Halloween related projects, including fear-related drawing projects and decorating pumpkins. She quickly notices Peter’s isolation from his peers and what appear to be other signs of abuse; for one thing, the boy seems to be perpetually tired. What she doesn’t know is that Peter never gets a full night’s sleep because he is awakened every night by tapping coming from within the walls of his bedroom, a knocking that his parents deny the existence of and which is soon accompanied by the soft, whispering voice of a little girl begging for help. 

My viewing companion for the film noted that he had previously seen child actor Norman in the Joaquin Phoenix vehicle C’mon C’mon, and noted that he was a talented performer in that one as well, and he gives a very strong performance here. Caplan has a panicked, nervous energy here that I haven’t seen from her before, as it lacks the sardonic sense of humor of her more customary roles; she manically moves from room to room locking doors behind her like Nicole Kidman in The Others. Carol’s moments of genuine kindness toward her son always have a bitter aftertaste of guilt that will be terribly familiar to anyone who’s ever known a parent who is unable to stand up to their partner regarding the treatment of their child, and it’s potent, given how little other characterization she gets. Putting Starr in this role of Stepfather-adjacent pathological paternalism is the casting equivalent of shorthand that carries over the barely-contained psychopathy of his Homelander character on Amazon’s The Boys. He never commits any acts of physical violence, but his presence alone is menacing, and his hot-and-cold affection for his son is distressing. That Norman is holding his own in these scenes against the performers playing his parents is astonishing; I’ve rarely seen such a talented child actor, and I genuinely can’t remember the last one I saw whose last name wasn’t Fanning. 

The constant danger that poor Peter is in is palpable as the walls close in around him and his lifelines are clipped. His father is clearly dangerous, but he can’t rely on his mother for help as she is Mark’s collaborator as much as she is his prisoner, and Peter loses access to the only sympathetic person in his life, Miss Devine, when he is expelled from school after striking back at his bully at the suggestion of the voice behind the walls. The voice claims that she is Peter’s sister, locked away in the walls for being born “wrong” somehow, and that she has been waiting for Peter to grow strong enough to move the grandfather clock in their parents’ bedroom that hides the door to her prison, so that they can escape together before Mom and Dad decide to lock Peter away, too. Although the audience is naturally distrustful of the voice, we have no reason to think that the parents are innocent either, and Peter has no one else he can turn to anyway, so he commits to the plan to help her escape.

It would be incorrect to say that Cobweb “loses steam” as it enters its third act; if anything, the film picks up the pace from there. It does, however, lose some of its atmosphere and tension once it crosses that threshold. If you’re the kind of person who’s hypervigilant now as a result of growing up with a parent whose hair-trigger temper was like a second language, this will be familiar to you. The film inevitably takes a sharp turn into a different kind of horror once we get more answers about what’s in the walls (if anything) and what the parents know (or don’t). When Coleman re-enters the plot, things pick up a bit, and the film’s final chilling moments make up for some of the more conventional horror turns that occur. Still, this one is a real overlooked gem from this year, especially if you’re looking for something that puts atmosphere first. 

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond