It has been a while since I last saw a relatively new release. I had that itch to check out something new these past days as I realised I'm actually very out of the loop when it comes to modern television series and feature length titles. Streaming services are a chore to sit through to find something, and often enough I just don't have that patience. I Googled through some newer releases much like I did a few months ago, and found a few titles to check out. It is rare that I choose a modern horror or thriller film due to the genres being plagued with annoying tropes that just make them all the same. Recently it appears there's a new trope playing out within these genres: the house. The idea of the house as a setting for something far more sinister than meets the eye. Barbarian was a film much like this, indie but with a decent enough budget and story to hold your interest. Well, I assumed that'd be the case here with Cobweb, but I tried my best to avoid the synopsis. In fact, even as the credits ran I was surprised to see Seth Rogen listed as a producer, given his work recently elsewhere in animation and The Boys.
I really wasn't sure what to expect from this one. But I think I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, especially after seeing the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Though with this film came some wasted potential as it started to reach its conclusion, going a bit off the rails to pursue an action packed finale rather than expanding upon its oddness. It held a great build up of tension and questions to begin with, however. Starting off quite strong, ultimately leading me in one direction as it went in another. Subverted expectations are rarely done well in films and television shows, but one of the main strengths here was how it handled it all. Another strength was in how the film progressed mostly with the perspective of a child, giving us a lot to connect with and feel for, contributing to those subverted expectations as the story went on and became more strange. The fact that this film didn't feel like a slow burn with a relatively short runtime also added to the positives. It didn't overstay its welcome, and thus never got boring with filler.
So, for now I can already suggest watching the film, perhaps more fitting over Halloween for the atmosphere. It'll be a lot more fun then.
Cobweb
For a thriller and horror film, I would say that Cobweb is a film that isn't actually scary at all. It's purely atmospheric in how it builds up its story and throws various questions at the audience. This film introduces its main protagonist as a young child, one that gets bullied often at school and believes he's hearing a voice in the wall. His parents of course don't believe anything, telling him its nothing and that he's just misbehaving. These dismissive parents at first just seem stupid, but as the story progresses it starts to look malicious. This works alongside a concerned teacher that pokes their nose around the family trying to figure out what's really going on in her student's life. Clearly something is afoot here. What adds to the suspense is how the child slowly begins to to act out on the words he's hearing in his room. Pushing one of his bullies down the stairs in school, breaking his leg in the process.
The more we see of his home life, the more it appears as if the parents are holding something from the world. There's talks of a young girl that went missing in the area not long ago, which implies something sinister as the parents start acting very suspicious. I really liked how this was handled, at first it felt a bit generic, a bit too blatant with its story. But it sure took me for a ride as it turned out everything I had assumed was in fact wrong. And the film rarely implies anything other, making that final pay-off really take you off-guard. Though, the problem here is that the reality of the situation isn't that interesting. Instead, it's a bit disappointing. As the film picks up with the action, the truth gets revealed to us, but that truth just doesn't really appear all that interesting or scary. Especially having had the film build up this suspense for almost an hour. It's this last 25 minutes of the film which really focuses on wrapping things up that things sort of fall flat, and don't get me wrong, it isn't bad, just in the narrative seems a bit too normal. Part of this is due to how well your expectations get subverted, your mind starts to question all options, and the truth just doesn't have much weight in comparison.
From the cinematic perspective, the film is done very well. I really liked the lighting and directing in this. It didn't pursue any weird horror tropes in the sense that you have violins screeching and long, slow dolly shots moving inward into the darkness -- though I admit there is a few similar ideas here. But they don't throw out any jump scares sudden loud noises. A strength here is that once the truth is revealed, it still keeps it quite hidden. We don't really see the thing that is hiding in the walls. One thing I have to mention though: why are American houses built so poorly that their walls are paper thin with enough space to walk through?! So many horror and thriller films focus on this idea, it seems the genres would crumble without the idea of massive housing space being wasted with empty walls. Anyway, the utilisation of showing very little of our supposed threat means it continues being something we aren't so sure about. We don't need to see everything, just enough of it to get an idea of its shape and size. Hands on the flooring from beneath the door; long, grey hair that drags around. These are a few examples in which I felt not showing a lot was actually better!
I really don't want to go too deep into the story or spoil anything, so that's as far as I'll go in discussing the story and its main idea. But I will say that I actually quite enjoyed this film. It was a really nice surprise despite having a few weaknesses here and there. In terms of visuals and performances, there wasn't really much wrong with it. Very few characters, and given just enough screen time each.
