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12th September 2024
10:31am BST
Netflix has just added Cobweb, the supremely creepy 2023 movie starring Antony Starr (The Boys) and Lizzy Caplan (Cloverfield).
The directorial debut of Samuel Bodin (who created the very scary Netflix series Marianne), Caplan and Starr play parents whose eight-year-old son Peter (Woody Norman, C'mon C'mon) becomes plagued by a mysterious, constant tapping noise from inside his bedroom wall.
When the boy tells his family about this, they insist the noise is all in his imagination.
"As Peter's fear intensifies, he believes that his parents could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions their trust," the plot synopsis reads.
Co-starring Cleopatra Coleman (Infinity Pool) as Peter's kindly teacher and produced by Seth Rogen, Cobweb earned a mixed response from critics - with some reviewers taking issue with the horror's third-act reveals, its dark cinematography and its very abrupt ending.
As such, it holds a 59% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
That said, audiences seem to have responded more positively for the most part to the flick, with it earning a 71% audience score on the same review aggregation site.
And now that Cobweb is streaming on Netflix, many have come out to defend the horror - including website What to Watch, who called the Rotten Tomatoes score "unfairly low" and urged people to ignore rating.
Having seen the film, JOE can confirm that, while it has its issues, the movie's unsettling performances by Caplan and Starr, its creepy set-up, its taut set-pieces and its spooky autumnal setting make it excellent viewing in the run-up to Halloween.
You can read a sample of some of the positive reviews for Cobweb below:
Deadline: "Cobweb benefits from strong performances and a haunting atmospheric tone."
Empire: "Cobweb uses familiar elements to create an inviting, entertaining atmosphere — and when the horrors finally emerge in the final reel, it gives good splatter to boot."
Los Angeles Times: "The script by Chris Thomas Devlin succeeds in maintaining us in suspense and includes plenty of brutal moments."
MovieFreak.com: "Director Samuel Bodin and writer Chris Thomas Devlin may not do anything too terribly new or original with their visceral shocker Cobweb, but that does not mean their exceedingly confident production still doesn’t manage to entertain."
Variety: "Director Samuel Bodin’s first theatrical feature is atmospheric, and departs from stock slasher conventions just enough to make for an entertaining if unexceptional scarefest."
Cobweb is streaming on Netflix in Ireland and the UK right now.
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