Rent Cobweb (2023)

Clichéd Ghost Story - Cobweb review by GI

A ghost story that essentially steals from a whole host of other better films including Let The Right One In (2008), The Ring (2002) and The Babadook (2014) amongst others and whilst it's very predictable and utilises well worn narrative tropes it does begin with an interesting allegory around parental child abuse but eventually descends into a nasty spook story. Eight your old Peter (Woody Norman) is a withdrawn kid, bullied and friendless, who gets the attention of kindly teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman). But at home Peter has to tread warily around his creepy parents (Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr), while emotionally dealing with finding a skull in his backyard, and hearing strange knocking and voice from inside the walls of his house. This all builds up to a malevolent ghost creature emerging coinciding with a home invasion scenario, which means the film goes for horror over subtlety. This is a shame as the final result is a fairly routine horror film that lacked any real originality or indeed scares.