Eight-year-old Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant tap, tap from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping that his parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes that his parents could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions. A film by Samuel Bodin, starring Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr, Woody Norman, and Cleopatra Coleman.

Peter (Woody Norman) is awakened in the middle of the night by a disquieting knocking sound emanating from the wall of his bedroom. Too afraid to return to sleep, he rouses his mother, (Lizzy Caplan), and father, (Antony Starr). However, when they come to investigate the wall, they are unable to discern anything that Peter describes. They contend that he is merely hallucinating, and that it is all in his head.

Eager to join the other children in trick-or-treating on Halloween this year, Peter asks his parents for permission. However, they forbid him, citing the unsolved case of a young girl who vanished on Halloween several years ago, before Peter was born.

Soon, the enigmatic entity behind the wall begins to converse with him. His substitute teacher, (Cleopatra Coleman), visits his home after seeing a disturbing painting of a boy in bed crying for help, which enrages his parents since others may misinterpret it as a domestic abuse. However, when his parents question him about his drawing, he responds in a cryptic message that it was not he who cried for help.

Every night, Peter learns more about the enigmatic entity. At first, she emboldens him to stand up to the bully at school. Then, she asserts that she has been imprisoned within the wall by his parents and warns him that his parents are not who he believes them to be. She has been waiting many years for him to be strong enough to liberate her. Is she telling the whole truth, or is she using words to manipulate him into doing what she wants?

Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan give compelling performances as the creepy father and hysterical mother, respectively. Although their onscreen chemistry does not suggest love, this may be the director’s intention to create a sinister atmosphere that makes the audience question who to believe.

COBWEB is an American horror thriller film directed by Samuel Bodin in his directorial debut, with a screenplay written by Chris Thomas Devlin. It is a kind of film that is best experienced when one knows little or nothing about its plot.

The film is considerably engaging, as we discover more about the enigmatic entity, we are eager to learn more about her past, who she really is, and the reason why she has been trapped within the wall. However, the final act does not fulfill the expectations that the film has built up to that point. It becomes just another run-of-the-mill horror film that we have seen too many times before.

COBWEB had a limited theatrical release in the United States on 21 July 2023 by Lionsgate. It was released digitally on 11 August.