La Maison du mal

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 feels like an incomplete collection of horror ideas that aren't explored to their full potential, but it fairly succeeds thanks to the second act where the real terror awakens.

There's no sugarcoating Cobweb's flaws, from pacing to convoluted editing, and at times with crappy CGI that actually scares more than the movie. It might not be a particularly memorable horror film, but it's still decent enough with it's jump scares that engages us. The climax/conclusion was lousy though, which somehow ended in a jiffy rather than taking it slow.

My Rating:6/10.

"Cobweb" is a slow-burning thriller that builds tension from ordinary events to eerie happenings, culminating in a series of abnormal occurrences. The director skillfully develops the characters' backstories, and the leading actors deliver convincing performances, particularly in their portrayal of semi-psychopathic characters. The story is engaging and keeps the audience captivated without resorting to cheap tricks.

However, the film's ending falls short of expectations. In an attempt to create a frightening atmosphere, the final scene is shot in near darkness, making it difficult to discern what is happening on screen. Rather than being scary, this lack of visibility is frustrating and detracts from the overall impact of the film, which is a shame because otherwise this could have been an outstanding film.

Overall, "Cobweb" earns an exact score of 58 / 100 from me. Fans of the genre may find it worth watching, but others may want to give it a miss.

Not a huge fan of this movie because of the massive pivot half way thru.

I won't spoil it but there's a point where they build up to something which I was looking forward to, and then the movie just devolves down the proverbial toilet bowl.

Some of the audience will enjoy the devolution after build up and then full toilet bowl down to bad writing/cgi and utter nonsense, but I personally wasn't a fan.

This is becoming a bit of a trend, where movies will drive you somewhere, but then make a hard turn into chaos, where the writing style and the entire build up was something of a ruse. This movie for me it didn't work, the first half was well acted and very creepy however. 5.5/10.

I liked this one! It's not ground-breaking innovative and it has its flaws. It's about two creepy parents living in a creepy house, something creepy is hiding inside the house and a bullied boy with nightmares. It's the perfect setting for a good old-school horror movie. Unfortunately, it's not that creepy but I enjoyed every minute of it, Except for the terrible ending. But you can't get everything can you. There is not much acting going on so I can't really comment on that other than the little boy is doing fine. The parents are supposed to be unsettling and I think they do a desent job. Don't expect people or things will follow basic logic, because it doesn't. Just relax and enjoy the ride for what it is. It is occasionally bloody and gory but not a typical slasher movie - something I appreciated. Cobweb is definitely not a 1 star movie, nor is it a 10 star masterpiece. In my opinion 6/10 is what it deserves.

The first hour of Cobweb was properly scary in places, built some great tension and benefited from great acting from Caplan especially. The direction was very effective even though it did rely on jump scares a little to much.

So far so good. However, the last twenty minutes or so really stretch the levels of believability to breaking point. The strength of Cobweb is its ambiguous nature at the start. What happened to the girl? Who really are the mum and dad? And who is the voice behind the wall? Are all questions that we really shouldn't have had answers to.

Unfortunately it seems that the director to the excellent French spook series on Netflix Mariane has caved to the less esoteric American style of of happy endings with everything and cover it with layers of cheese.

Still very watchable though.