So it’s a shame that Cobweb isn’t particularly concerned with his character - or Lizzy Caplan’s, for that matter. Starr excels at portraying disturbed men who have learned to wear normalcy like a mask, though his characters sometimes forget to properly secure it. As Mark, Starr brings the kind of warm menace he wields so well as Homelander to a quieter setting, and it translates incredibly well. Yet it isn’t hard to imagine a version of the film that does nail this, mostly off the strength of Antony Starr’s performance as Mark, and Woody Norman’s wide-eyed innocence opposite him. The film’s script, full of obvious cues and terrible grade-schooler dialogue where schoolyard bullies threaten Peter like they’re fellow inmates in gen pop, simply can’t support the domestic dread in the first two-thirds of the movie. As inelegant as that transition is, it isn’t unwelcome. In its third act, Cobweb pivots to another kind of horror entirely, abruptly trading the palpable fear of a child whose parents may be secretly sinister for a goofier monster movie. Unfortunately, the film’s most compelling questions don’t ever get answered. For a good chunk of Cobweb’s 90-minute run time, it seems like it’s building to a revelation about them. Peter befriends the voice, and learns that there may be things about his parents he doesn’t know. The family at the center of Cobweb initially seems like the mystery the film is built around, especially when Peter starts hearing a voice speaking to him from his bedroom walls. And when Peter is in trouble, they lock him in the basement. His parents keep a pumpkin patch, which seems to be the only thing they do together. He doesn’t really go out, watch TV, or play video games. He lives with his parents, Mark (Starr, The Boys’ Homelander) and Carol (Lizzy Caplan), in a big old house that seems devoid of a lot of the modern pleasures his friends probably enjoy. Is one actor a good enough reason to watch a horror movie? That decision is between you and the Elder Gods, but Cobweb, the new horror film out this weekend hoping to nab anyone not caught up in Barbenheimer mania, makes a pretty strong case for The Boys’ Antony Starr as a horror movie icon - until it abandons him for something less scary.Ĭobweb follows Peter (Woody Norman), a troubled young boy whose life reads a lot like the start of a sad fairy tale.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |