by Christian Grullon, Contributing Writer
Peter’s bedroom will have its fair share of bumps on the wall, and to add insult to injury, the bumps become a voice trapped inside the wall. This scary sequence is the strange world of Samuel Bodin’s Cobweb,where we have bullied and isolated child Peter (Woody Norman) hearing a voice he should not hear.
He deals with his parents, Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr). In the beginning, we see Peter walking to school while other students are playing around. However, you do not have background noise from the other kids; setting the tone this way in no way socially isolates Peter. On a positive note, there is a compassionate teacher, Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), who cares more for Peter’s well-being than his parents.
Starr and Caplan perform excellently, displaying their disconnection with Peter and their abusive tendencies. Also, when Peter shares his concerns with the voice, his parents often dismiss him and tell him it is all in his head. The examples of the abuse are when the parents lock Peter in a basement and chastise him for drawing a picture of the wall with the mysterious voice.
Then the mysterious voice talks to Peter and befriends him at one point, before she reveals her true self in the movie’s climax. The cinematography is pretty solid, giving a little bit of a haunted house vibe, and Peter’s house and bedroom provide a lonely, isolated feel. Norman perfectly portrays a bulled, scared, and lonely child.
Unfortunately, the pacing is slow, and at times the direction is lost a little bit. For example, a bully named Brian (Luke Busey) tortures Peter, but it is not addressed until Peter violently pushes Brian down the stairs. Brian is not seen again until near the end of the movie’s predictable showdown.
Miss Devine visits Carol and Mark’s house to ask about Peter out of concern for his well-being. She does what a teacher should do: check on an unsafe child. In a weird dialogue, Miss Devine notices a wound on Mark’s arm and says, “You’re bleeding.” Mark replies, “Loose nail. Don’t worry about it.” Nothing moves forward after that; the subject drops quickly. What was the point of that scene if nothing else was going to be established from it? How did he get that wound in the first place, beyond what he says?
Cobweb is somewhat scary, but it can’t overcome the slow pacing. Peter, Carol, and Mark’s performances are good to pay attention to. However, the film almost feels like five hours, rather than its official runtime of 88 minutes, and Peter never seems to catch a break between the voice, bullying, isolation, and his parent’s abuse. Despite the movie’s flaws, the actors do give good enough performances for it to be appreciated overall.
Rating: It’s Just Okay
Cobweb is currently playing in theaters
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