Cobweb is not a good movie.

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Note: I accidentally messed up the timing of some streamer sounds so they randomly go off throughout the runtime :'( THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE CHAPTER BREAKS. I'm so sorry. I didn't notice until 3 hours before go-live.
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[@MertKayKay]

Thanks to Raid: Shadow Legends for sponsoring today's video! Go to strms.net/raid_mertkaykay to download Raid and claim your free starter pack today!

[@Poutnicek]

I don't think the dad's speech about "burying the bad pumpkins and hoping the next crop is better" was supposed to imply that he wants to kill Peter. Rather, it was his way to tell Peter why they put his sister in the wall (she was "a bad pumpkin", while Peter is the "next, better crop"), and they are going to kill her so that she doesn't "infect" him anymore. I think the part about them wanting to kill Peter was just a lie told by Sarah as a way to manipulate him. I agree that the movie was a let down, though.

[@MerryGrey]

This was absolutely my take hearing it, it's just that the delivery of everything around it was so ham-handed that the subtlety was lost

[@kiillabytez]

I think it was literally about pumpkins. Not everything has to have a double meaning and sometimes, just sometimes, things are literal. If they were going to kill the boy, there would be more leading up to that than a mention of pumpkins. BTW, I bet you liked M3GAN, didn't you.

[@AWearyExile]

Problem I have with a lot of these "Monster is a metaphor for abuse/trauma" movies is they never really seem to...do anything with that idea. "Abuse is bad and like a monster." or "Trauma is traumatic." is not really an interesting concept for a story.

[@MertKayKay]

Very true! It's often been done better elsewhere too

[@camelliaharpdarkthrope6462]

I hate how these types of movies turn the victim of the trauma into literal monsters too that then go on to attack other innocent people like it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth

[@alexroy5854]

I'd say the movie Antlers does a good job using the monster as a metaphor while also commenting on how abuse and addiction tend to create a cycle

[@chukyuniqul]

The fact SH2 might be the reason this kinda writing style was inflicted on the world is imo kinda damaging its claim as "the best" of the series ngl. That being said, I will never not see anyone who is so in the face about that shit as pretentious. Like, it follows was a good movie on its own. The monster was a horrifying concept and while the parallel to STDs was a bit hamfisted by way of transmission, it also serves for great fridge squick when you realize the girl got a train ran through her with people she more than likely didn't care for only to buy herself some time. It's, in some ways, also a set-up for dehumanization, for someone throwing away their dignity to survive (I'm not saying getting a train run through you is undignified as much as I'm saying that NEEDING to let a train run through you under pressure of death only for the sake of postponing said death, and the train is made of whatever people you get nearby who you don't even know is kinda undignified). But the story works almost entirely on its own merits. Meanwhile all the "monster as metaphor" stories seem to hinge entirely on you being wowed by how deep and clever making the metaphor into a monster is. Take away the metaphorical aspects of SH2's monsters and you still have some truly unpleasant designs, disturbing movements and creepy sounds. Hell, the lying figures have no reason to crawl around like hellish cockroaches far as I can tell but they still do and that is amazingly horrific, divorced from their symbolism. Point is, the "monster as metaphor" take was never really a kingmaker. Because in horror, there is no one kingmaker. And even if it was the largest contributing factor (big if there), it is still in the minority compared to other aspects such as the baseline of a great story.

[@Jane-ow7sr]

​@@camelliaharpdarkthrope6462I mean it makes sense though and does happen, especially with pedo victims a lot of them (mostly the boys) go on to become pedos themselves.

[@JayJohnHeitmann]

Italian food has a history of being paired with wine, and wine had a history of being paired with ethylene glycol prior to mass fatalities, so in that aspect lasagna and antifreeze aren't such an unusual combination, at least from a historical standpoint.

[@MertKayKay]

Wow that is extremely insightful, thank you

[@smol-one]

This comment made me so unintentionally happy, for no explainable reason. Thank you.

[@JayJohnHeitmann]

@@smol-one Whoever said dark history trivia can't be fun?

[@MsPurji313]

This comment made my day. I ugly cackled.

[@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527]

I don’t think there are any known cases of the glycol killing anyone, at least as far as I am aware.

[@Shammon5]

The trailer made me think it was about a kid who's once loving parents were replaced with demons or monsters and he has to live with them because he doesnt know how to get help. It could have been such a good film, the parents at first seeming "off" but then getting more and more unhinged and monstrous over time. Maybe as a metaphor for alcohol and drug abuse and its impact in the children in the home? The trailer made it seem like a much more interesting movie. :/ It's a shame.

[@29jgirl92]

Now I want to watch THIS movie°!

[@sammahoney9343]

That’s EXACTLY what I thought this would be, glad I watched this instead of wasting 90+ minutes

[@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527]

That would be an amazing concept

[@flowerdeliveryservice5157]

It’s like, the parents are too fucked up to think ‘they were right all along’. the one thing I could see working is having the sister, while looking like a monste, loving her brother and not being a danger to him, maybe even being (murderously) protective of him. and maybe she could be allowed to slip away at the end, like letting a spider out

[@theblasblas]

Yah know, that is surprisingly similar to a reddit spooky story I listened to a while back. Campfire Tales by William Rayne It has mostly all the same elements. A younger sibling talking to an older sibling trapped behind a door. Creepy parents. A constantly shifting narrative between household abuse and monster flick. And lots of twists. One of the major differences being in Campfire Tales the siblings do care for each other.

[@PotatoKing86]

That's too obvious

[@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527]

@@PotatoKing86I mean the monster being a monster is more obvious tho

[@PotatoKing86]

@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 maybe

[@wolfeyes555]

You know what would have been actually interesting? If the parents were actually characterized as good, loving parents. Like that would neatly explain why they kept the daughter alive.

[@gRinchY-op5vr]

Yes give us that, show signs for some doubt at some point that they are said good loving parents so we are then worried for the kid and then plot twist they are actually still goos loving parents they just didn't know what to do with their murderous daughter. What I got from the film instead was "parents are still bad, the daughter is just worse"

[@aurora5481]

Or at least conflicting in a consistent way! They had a murderous daughter that they killed for and could not bear to murder even when she became uncontrollable, so they locked her away and possibly died on accident there. Then, when Peter then displays a sudden burst of clearly meditated violence, they just lock him up because that's the only solution they ever learnt. They realise they overreacted _horribly_ and mother brings in cupcakes as an apology, and genuinely try to amend, but the trust is broken: the parents are bullies, and the voice in the wall is the only one whom Peter can trust. The daughter becomes a manifestation of not just Peter's trauma but his parents' as well, as the two sides continue to hurt each other, propelled both by the ghost of the daughter - metaphorically in the parents' case, and literally in Peter's.

[@La-PetitMort]

@@aurora5481 It is so frustrating to see someone easily fix the script like this when Hollywood could have done the same and just didn't.

[@kiillabytez]

It's essentially a movie where a child has an overactive imagination, and it was his imagination that brought "the sister" to life. 8-years and Peter never heard her before now? No, it was something he imagined which became reality, like an evil imaginary friend. This theory makes sense because psychologically, children who develop imaginary friends are not much unlike Peter: An estranged family dynamic, a child who is bullied at school and has no friends their own age, a desire to have a sibling to share an existence with. Yes, I believe it's just an imaginary friend tale, nothing more.

[@FTZPLTC]

I know it's pointless to say because it'll never change, but... there really should be some kind of law against including dream sequence material in movie trailers. I've lost track of how many movies I've seen that have done this, and it's almost always because, if they don't show *that* in the trailer, what else could they show?

[@MertKayKay]

Yes! It's always just trailer snippets that end up being totally unrelated

[@bellarmire]

The trailer made me think that maybe the whole family were monsters (exemplified by the creepy mother dream sequence)? And that it's something that develops with age, which is why Peter was hearing voices and becoming violent, and their choice to isolate him was to prevent them being discovered? Again, all because of a dream sequence.

[@Pihsrosnec]

​@@bellarmirethat sounds like a better movie tbh

[@guillermopena8412]

I doubt that the movie touches on this. But fun fact, if you eat Pumpkin soup every night for dinner, eventually your skin will start turning yellowish or orange. My sister was on a weird Pumpkin only vegan diet for a while where all she ate was baked pumpkin and pumpkin soup and in about a month her hands looked as if she had been using bags of Cheetos as gloves.

[@xRaiofSunshine]

😱!!!

[@bonehead2641]

Same thing can happen with carrots.

[@fluorescentgreys]

Yeah lmao this happened to my cousin when he was a baby

[@direcircumstances]

I would have found it interesting if the final subversion of expectations involved Peter deciding that he's going to love his sister no matter what, and he continues being kind and caring towards her even after she reveals herself to be a big angry monster. This would be an interesting direction for his bravery arc, because it takes a lot of courage to stare down a murderous monster and say "you're my sister, and I love you." His sister certainly wouldn't have expected that response, and Peter's kindness could have disarmed her enough for him to survive the encounter without violence. But hey, maybe that's just me being a sappy optimist who loves happy endings.

[@teslashark]

Mutants and evil lesser gods, unite!

[@samius01]

The movie aside these critiques just keep getting funnier and funnier. This specific flavor of drypan humor feels strangely unique among KZbin video essays for some reason.

[@MertKayKay]

Plenty more where that came from

[@nocturnalcove9736]

You'd think if the parents wanted their daughter gone, they would have just killed her and stuffed her body in the wall and the film be about her ghost haunting her brother. They killed the girl, so what's stopping them from killing their child? If you want a good 'something is in the house' film then watch Black Christmas (the 1970s one) or Barbarian.

[@Allgloss312]

Ill also add “I see you” onto that list - i recommend just going in blind but i will say it is an interesting multi layered thriller that certainly will scratch that itch while also having a pretty unique story

[@froggysin]

Barbarian ended poorly and fell flat on the humor IMO. I had the same issues with that that are listed here. It does have incredible visuals though. Worth it for that alone. I wanted to love it so much.

[@nocturnalcove9736]

@@froggysin Spoilers: The best thing about Barbarian other than Bill Skarsgård was Keith and how the writers tricked the audience into thinking he was the villain. Nope. Turns out he's just a normal guy who was awkward. Good twist that made us realise we've fallen so far in our judgement that we failed to notice a genuinely nice man. Now I just wanted the film to be about Tess and Keith stuck in the Air BnB bonding cause they were cute.

[@chukyuniqul]

maybe I'm missing the point of the kinda movie you're recommending (saw precisely none of the ones mentioned and only just started watching this video), but based on the premise name I think Skinamarink also counts. It's pretty hard to watch, but the specific kinda "something's in the house" horror feeling is definitely there in my opinion.

[@teslashark]

Yeah, they'd feed her the cinnamon rat poison.

[@felisazure1820]

What you described is an issue I see in a lot of horror. They're a mash up of scary ideas that feel like they could work together, but there lacks that extra layer of polish that brings them all together in a way that feels deep rather than tacked on. If this script was given another look over to tie it all together and keep things consistent, it sounds like it could have been a pretty good story.

[@chopsandtoots]

See: Don't Worry Darling. The film is basically the trailer fast-forwarded. It's like the director had these cool scenes thought up that individually are very interesting but she failed to string them together in a cohesive or meaningful way.

[@felisazure1820]

@@chopsandtoots Yeah I've heard that about the film, which is why I didn't watch it.

[@carpenterdudepl9827]

I actually had some issues with miss Divine. I do think she's is very easy to root for because she has Peter's safety at heart and is nice but that's sort of the bare minimum, and the way they wrote her handling Peter's possible abuse situation was very weird. It's clear they wanted her to go to their house but it just really makes no sense from a teacher's perspective, especially a substitute. I totally understand the difficulty and the problematic nature of handling a situation of abuse in the life of your student but in my opinion knocking on the door of his house and being like "Hello ma'am are you by any chance abusing your child" was a jaw-dropping moment. Again, it's a very difficult thing to handle, but you can assume that if a child writes "HELP ME" on a piece of paper it is likely that he for one reason or another can't go to his parents with it, because if he could he likely would have. Which is why reporting the cry for help to his potential abusers is a bad idea. If he's in fact being abused, you will get brushed off at the door since you have no authority, you're not CPS, you have no warrant, and the child will get punished for it and will have learned his lesson that he can't trust his teacher either. The parents will also become more careful. She also puts herself in a dangerous situation for many reasons, personally and professionally. Talking to the child first would make more sense to me, given that he's already reached out explicitly and you can have the conversation in a friendly non-confrontational manner if the child is cagey. That way you can sus out if your worries are indeed correct or maybe the child indeed has an overactive imagination, or simply drew a scary picture which was the assignment. Cooperating with a school psychologist is also a good idea, since while teachers have to have some knowledge in that area, they aren't trained professionals. It also gives you someone to back you up if the parents were to get defensive and accuse her of harassing them since she is showing up at their house for no reason. I am way overthinking this, but this film is sloppy and just wants people to be in the right place at the right time to do the horror stuff and that's one of the examples of how they do it.

[@prettyevil6662000]

I was also extremely annoyed by Miss Divine's behavior. Teachers, even substitutes, are taught how to handle suspected abuse cases. And the training is 'report it. You're a mandated reporter.' It would have been more believable if she'd talked to him first, heard about the sister in the walls talking to him, reported it but then he lied to CPS after his mom and dad scolded him to stop talking about it. That would push Miss Divine to have to intervene on her own in a more believable way at the end at least.

[@TheSpinney123]

Every scene with Ms. Divine was so bizarre and inappropriate that I couldn't take anything in the movie seriously. At least with the parents, their behavior is weird and alien in a way that's purposefully heightened and kind of makes sense for people who have a kid with murder claws living in their walls, but Miss Divine is supposed to at least somewhat exist in a grounded reality.

[@cherryprincess848]

I worked in a daycare where a 3-year-old told me her dad would “fight” her, hit her, and “it left bruises that really hurt.” I went to report this to our director and she told me to ASK HER PARENTS??????? With the thought of “they should know what she’s saying” like that made sense. I’ll let you guess what I absolutely didn’t do. 😊 So instead I told my lead teacher when she was back the next day and she handled it herself. You are taught to absolutely not tell the parents what their child has been saying because if something is happening, you’ve just made the situation worse.

[@maxime7997]

Watched it a week ago because I recently re-entered a horror enjoying era. Tried gaslighting myself the first half of the movie that I was just not used to horror movies anymore and it wasn’t *that* bad. Thing is, I could tell from the beginning what the plot “twist” was gonna be. And it could have been well handled, with the predictability not taking away from the enjoyment of it, but no. It sucks whole heartedly and the entire time. Also yeah, terrible message around birth defects ? Like… you got parents who give birth to a baby that looks different and they just emprison her in their house, she then commits a murder cause she’s a kid that’s like, emotionally stunted from being held captive and surely berated and abused by her parents and when that happens their solution is to lock her up further in the house in a dingy basement moat and then in the walls. Fucking hell.

[@akedi2734]

heya! I am happy to hear you are enjoying horror again and hope you are still trying despite this poopy movie. May i recommend some recent horror that i enjoyed (found through watching many flops): -Bad things (2023) -A wounded Fawn (2022) -Wendell and wild (2022, it's a Henry Selick film and he is quite old so probs not getting many more like this even though its not rly scary just artsy and memorable) *edit* realized these r specific to my taste which is artsy, psychological, funny but unsettling, i like wondering about the directors choices etc have watched a lot of horror and jumpscares dont get to me. although texas chainsaw massacre 1974-2023 was interesting to watch after the release of the game this summer, there's at least 1 movie every decade and you can see the style morphing to match the year lol its cool

[@ava_marie_v]

If you're looking for recent horror I actually quite enjoyed Talk To Me (2022)

[@akedi2734]

@@ava_marie_v watchin this 😹 looks good

[@dontrah1838]

This guy ruined the whole movie

[@maxime7997]

@@akedi2734hey !! Sorry to get back to you this late, so I watched Wendell and Wild and it is now my favorite movie of this year, it was fun and just the animation the storytelling, all of it was great thanks for the recommendation !!! I’ve got the others on a list to watch in the future, thanks so much for sharing the titles with me ! Have a great week :)

[@HappyLarry.]

From your description, it almost sounds like they had Anthony Starr, and just wanted to use his Homelander-level intimidation skills and so ham-fisted it in rather than create something organic. Personally, I think a movie about a family who keeps their eldest psychopathic-killer daughter locked up in their house could've been a cool story to watch, the parents doing everything possible to mitigate her influence, while the boundless curiosity of their young son leads to him releasing her from the prison they made for her, and the parents trying to hunt her down after she begins killing again. Watching Anthony Starr's mild-mannered father character getting more and more frustrated and angry before exploding when he hunts her, the mother taking care of stuff like cleaning and feeding the daughter and seeing the mixture of fear and love, I mean why wouldn't that work?

[@jp-wc4ce]

It feels like this film was the latest victim of the 'twist for twists sake' disease plaguing Hollywood right now, like the directors felt so strongly that they had to keep the audience guessing that they flung in as many red herrings as they could. or maybe the writers were just playing gartic phone with the script lol. in any case, great video as always! if you're interested in a kind of subversion of the 'there's something in the walls' premise, I recommend checking out The People Under the Stairs. while a bit too goofy to be a true horror imo, it's very entertaining!

[@lauraschlieselhuber8487]

My thirst for bad horror movies/game critiques cannot be quenched and I hold you responsible for this vice of mine. Also if you look for another one : Unfriended.

[@MertKayKay]

Thank you Laura! I'm still watching horror movies for next month's reviews so, honestly, I need all the recommendations I can get

[@lauraschlieselhuber8487]

​​@@MertKayKay maybe try the horror movie inspired by Arthur and The Minimoys, made by the same guy, Luc Besson whom also made the Fifth Element and The Great Blue. It's famous for being utter shit in France, even the concept is a piss poor idea. Can't remember the name tho, sorry. There's also Gothika. I used to love it when I was a kid, but it probably didn't age very well, and I don't remember how it handles its themes.

[@carolinefloyd3298]

@@lauraschlieselhuber8487Arthur: Malédiction, I believe? your comment sent me on a mission trying to figure out what it was!

[@lauraschlieselhuber8487]

​@@carolinefloyd3298 Yes ! That's the one ! Thank you for your detective skills lol. Gods, even the name is bland as fuck.

[@lupindraco422]

Honestly they should have kept the daughter a victim, where while she is not a normal human she was never truly evil and have her telling Peter to hurt his bully being because she didn't know better, which would make sense as she had no way to learn healthy social skills including how to deal with bullies, especially with the way the parents acted.

[@Hazeljv3]

I could be off-base with this, since I haven't seen the movie myself, but the girl in the wall paired with the abusive patriarch kind of sounds like a *really* clumsy homage to "The Yellow Wallpaper". The movie definitely hits a lot of the same beats: protagonist being isolated and confined by the patriarch, protagonist hearing/talking to people in the walls, protagonist ripping down the wallpaper because they believe someone is trapped in the walls... It almost feels like one of the writers read Charlotte Gilman's story, absolutely missed the point, then snorted 14 lines of cocaine and went: "lots of popular horror movies focus on kids, so let's throw The Yellow Wallpaper and 2013's Mama into a blender and see what happens".

[@MertKayKay]

Yes! What a traumatising English Lit lesson that was. I definitely assumed it would be similar to the Yellow Wallpaper at the start of the film.

[@Fosharie1445]

The only thing I could think of was the Peter Peter pumpkin eater nursery rhyme and it reminded me of that. But also made no sense really? Like apparently the original rhyme was about chastity belts or an unfaithful wife so that doesn’t really make any sense either but why do we expect films to make sense? That would be wanting far too much (insert eye roll here) Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had another and didn't love her;
Peter learned to read and spell,
And then he loved her very well. On a side note, there’s a really good horror visual novel called Pumpkin eater that is a way more interesting look into a nuclear family devolving into madness. Great video as always even if the film sounds pretty shit lmao.

[@PKDionysus]

Yay! New video! 19:26 "Like a profiterole leaking with cream, these two suddenly start oozing the filthiest red flags on the planet!" I fucking love your writing. 😭😭😭😭

[@MertKayKay]

Thank you PK ;D

[@friendofdragons763]

Finally someone roasting this movie! I hated it the minute the teacher went to the kids house on her own and gave his mom the picture. She only reported it afterwards when she has no longer has any evidence. She is winning at idiot ball.

[@LovelessDogg1]

She was as substitute teacher. She probably wasn't all that experienced with what she should have done.

[@buzzinbea]

The final "twist" that the parents were good people all along seems strange when you consider that they literally locked Peter in a basement for who knows how long because he drew a picture. They literally have a whole secret punishment basement - I don't think you can bounce back from that

[@forgottenmoralsenses8357]

New halloween plans! Nothing better than torturing friends with bad horror movies

[@maddieb.4282]

The problem is that even nowadays, there are so few high quality horror movies that horror fans end up getting a little bit too hype over very mediocre movies 😂

[@nekromatica]

People been saying this since the 90s

[@harrisonpeterson3733]

What we need is more movies like the Invisible Man remake, or Mandy. Actual psychological horror movies like the former, or experimental, balls-to-the-walls insanity like the latter. We aren't scared by what we can see or understand. We're scared by what we can't see and can't hope to understand. Our minds fill in the blanks of what we can't get, and that's infinitely more horrifying than any monster, or "Metaphor" for abuse.

[@HistoryandHeadlines]

I watched it on Hulu with ads. The ads really made for a disjointed experience watching a horror film. The extra cost of paying for another add free streaming service is beyond my means at present, though.

[@stellalunakitsune]

Maybe the rat poison tasting like cinnamon is also a reference to pumpkin spice lol

[@amharbinger]

Like in The Happening, the pumpkins decided to rise up.

[@grumpcarmine4811]

Love that Signalis music has started appearing in your vids, it’s so instantly recognisable and comfortable. Also I gotta say, there’s something really hilarious about the idea of Peter getting back at Brian in a way that should have been satisfying, but he’s like “Well I already planned my revenge, guess I gotta” so he just pushes him down the stairs anyway, like out of obligation or something

[@MertKayKay]

Thank you, I really do love Signalis :D And yes! Like Peter, Brian has suffered the worst punishment I can imagine: social humiliation. Do we need to kick him when he's down?

[@renamon5658]

Movie feels like it does not know what it wants to be. It's all over the place

[@mismismism]

Between Cobweb and Skinamarink getting hyped, I've lost so much faith in people's taste in horror. Cobweb almost went somewhere that worked but I think making her human instead of something supernatural made it incredibly dumb and just created a laundry list of plot holes. If they explained the parents being so weird because they have to sacrifice people to keep her trapped for example. It would also explain why she can't just break through the walls or tumble the parents herself when they go in to feed her. Why she wouldn't just have her brother pass something like a hammer or a saw through the hole and escape herself. She's strong enough to rip a grown man in half bare handed but she can't yank a child off his feet holding her hair? If it had been a monster or demon they could have used a magic plot device to make it make sense. Why didn't the parents just kill her if she was just a scary looking child? Her being human just made almost everything that happened beyond dumb when you think about it. There was a good idea in there but the execution was terrible.

[@RedSpade37]

I still haven't seen Skinamarink; did I make the right choice in not seeing it? I heard it was supposed to be good, and I get the feeling it might be "up my alley" but... it has been hyped to hell and back, and that might be a sign...

[@mismismism]

@@RedSpade37 I hated it. It's extremely long, there's only one scene that even qualifies as a real scare, there's literally no plot, it's just a concept of a kid having a nightmare with zero story or progression. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that 95% of the movie is just fuzzy shots of walls, corners and toys. If you watch the first few minutes and find it boring, just know, that is literally the whole movie and there is nothing hidden in the dark or in the long holding shots l.

[@RedSpade37]

@@mismismism Well darn, yeah, I had a feeling, based on scrolling through thumbnails and such here on KZbin. Maybe a decade ago I would have enjoyed the "vibe" of such a thing, but yeah, it might make me fall asleep, haha. Guess I can go ahead and watch the famous reviews and such now. Thanks for the info! I trust your honesty here.

[@flutterg1035]

​@RedSpadeTre7 I'd recommend you watch the video Flaw peacock made on the movie. I think a lot of people don't like the movie because they're expecting something the movie isn't trying to do. The movie actually does have a plot, if you pay attention.

[@RedSpade37]

@@flutterg1035 I did indeed! Love his work. He's going to be covering Inscryption, too, soon, and I'm excited about that. Thanks for your suggestion!

[@AlexisHiemis]

I researched a bit about pumpkins because I also wondered about the significance and it turns out that pumpkins can spontanously grow into a wilder less domesticated form that is poisonous to humans. So I think a lot of the metaphor about burying a harvest and the constant eating of pumpkin soup might relate to that. But that makes it absolutely laughably bad to not poison the parents with a pumpkin. Maybe they figured the death would be too slow or they changed it because it's not a well known fact and people would have their suspension of disbelief broken? Oh well ...

[@BirchTD]

Your videos and content are always such an escape for me. Thank you very much

[@MertKayKay]

Thank you for being here Birch!

[@shinyy5184]

It's not breadcrumbs, more like a whole loaf of bread in the middle of the forest path

[@fusionspace175]

I think this is the calico cat of horror scripts. Pieces that worked got stitched together from different movies. One was about pumpkins, another was about spiders, etc. That's my best guess.

[@CommissarMitch]

Hearing this being explained it feels that this was supposed to be a short series. Just a few episodes. However then it was made into a movie. Kind of like those older TV Show "Movies" where the creators just put X episodes together to make it 90 minutes.

[@ballistachicken]

This is great timing - I was literally checking your channel yesterday to see if I'd missed any videos! So good to see you as always Mert, hope you're doing well!

[@MertKayKay]

Thanks! Yeah I accidentally forgot to upload for almost two months. I have been making tons of videos though, so there'll be plenty over the next few weeks!

[@JoseDorda]

Is Seffy getting along with the new cat? Was she playing or fughting with it early on the video?

[@MertKayKay]

Yes! They're little buddies now, they play all day and I love them

[@NekotTheBrave]

Getting expelled for pushing someone down the stairs? Does this like ever happen?

[@MertKayKay]

I feel like the leg-breaking was definitely an accident. Surely with a perfect record like Peter you'd just get a suspension!

[@gRinchY-op5vr]

I've seen (and had worse happen to me) in high school and yet the harshest punishment that would get dished was a suspension, so you'd think this kid with no history of violent behaviour in school would get expelled...or I just went to the one school where expulsions didn't exist.

[@NekotTheBrave]

Yeah, I've had something way worse on an entirely different level happen to me and the guy who did it only got a few days OSS. So I'm just like... being expelled, especially at that age just seems like someone wanted to write something serious but didn't know how any of this works.@@gRinchY-op5vr

[@hoe4vangogh]

The problem with this film is that none of the elements are inherently bad (except perhaps the cgi and lighting) but nothing is consistent and nothing works together. Even the cringey bits like the fathers line about ‘not being as sweet as it seems’ could have had a good pay off if that was in any way relevant to how the rat poison was used. If the poison had been used in the pumpkin cupcakes for example. It’s like the film suffers from horror movie character stupidity but to an extreme extent. We expect a level of incompetence from horror movie characters, I feel, there’s always a point where you question why a decision was made, but it can usually be written off as stress or something similar. It feels like here, they took that stereotype and really really ran with it. It’s a shame they couldn’t make the most of the positive aspects of the film.

[@MertKayKay]

YES. Absolutely yes!

[@emilycrow8278]

I thought the movie was going to take a different direction. Like the mother using the veil of a friend in the walls as a way to help her son at first and then, because she is too cowardly to find her own agency, manipulates her son to get at his father who killed the young girl that disappeared. Like, a sort of horror take on living in an abusive family and what that does to a kid with the horror and odd actions people present to us are emotional allegory for the pov character. Much like "Master" did. The monster sister direction just, was an oddly stupid take that ended up dropping all of it's build up to make a really, really lackluster payoff that accidently leaves a bad message for it's premise. A message of "hey parents, your abuse of your creepy daughter because you think she's ugly is warranted, cuz she's a monster. It's in the blood. Next time kill her and not cage her." I guess another reading on this could be a prequel to "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater" and he grows up to kill his wives, thinking they are haunted by his sister or some nonsense. I dunno, this movie was really janked.

[@sugarbaby1974]

I thought the same thing!! I was sure the voice was maybe going to be the ghost of the disappeared girl and the mother was an enabler who was so browbeaten by Homelander that she took advantage of her son's "psychosis" to get rid of her asshole husband once and for all. The other possibility I tossed around after the kid pushed his bully down the stairs was that there was a history of inherent violent behaviour in the family - Homelander is abusive due to this family curse or some shit (I was trying to think positive and not assume it was going to be another idiotic "mental illness = dangerously evil" trope, and I assumed the pumpkin motif had something to do it - maybe it was a sickness caused by the pumpkins and the family wasn't aware??) and, now that the son is "hearing the voice in the walls", i.e., the curse/demon/spirit/infection/whatever, he was going to start going down the dark path, too. The mother is freaking out because, goddammit, now there's TWO maniacs she's housed with. I should've known better.... :(

[@tessfabled4115]

The pumpkins having that type of mold that causes psychosis would have been a really interesting plot point! @@sugarbaby1974

[@lukabougainvillea]

Ah yes the "We are not a Violent family we don't to that BUT I'm gonna abuse you because I love you" A true classic

[@izznt]

This movie reminds me of that drama warm up game where you're in a circle with people and you make a story by going around and each saying one word or one sentence 😂🤐

[@praticle]

your sweater goes so unbelievably hard

[@slyloxm.6260]

But that creature at the end, I dunno, it walking around like a twitching spider mixed with that *chefs kiss* voice acting, getting some silent hill enemy vibes 😂

[@SubZeroJill]

Eyy! I literally JUST saw this movie a few hours ago (online :p)... and yeah- it was quite a letdown. Esp. the twist.. I didn't think it was built up that well. It would've made more sense and might've worked better if there was some decent foreshadowing I guess. But what do I know :p

[@kitsunekun2345]

Another movie I don't have to bother adding to the list! Thank you for saving my time.

[@Amayzun1]

Ms. Devine frustrated me so much because, if you think a kid is being abused, why are you asking the parents about it? Her calling him back, after he called her, whispering, was just putting him on blast. She went to the house alone, at night, never alerting the cops. And if there is a threat in the house, why would you walk out, with the child behind you...? I couldn't take all that along with how much this movie sucked.

[@iverifyiam18]

Like your great aunt at a swingers party 😂 your reads are always on point. Thank you so much for your content 🙏🙏

[@lazylistmaker]

Wait...this movie is just Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater??? "Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, Had a wife but couldn't keep her; He put her in a pumpkin shell And there he kept her very well. Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, Had another and didn't love her; Peter learned to read and spell, And then he loved her very well."

[@JordanLittle-bb3yq]

This was a great video, but I love how your cats are playing at the beginning. That's really cute.

[@MertKayKay]

They are lil rascals and I love them. Thanks for watching!!

[@neddles33]

I had a completely different reaction to Terrifier. I love horror, especially cheesy horror, and I've given a pass to a lot of really wild things, but Terrifier and All Hallow's Eve both came across to me as really cruelly misogynistic. And it takes a huge amount for me to get that icky feeling on themes (which I don't think was the ick they were meaning)

[@EggheadsGuide]

from your description the morale is: It is not bad to have mystery and vagueness in horror but if you do it too much your audience may be too confused to be scared.

[@btmdth8843]

The one thing I liked was the exaggerated silhouettes in some shots and the direction in some scenes. It just sucks that the script wasnt as good. Like peter was wayyyyy too ready to murder his parents he had no problems with 2 days earlier just because of a voice in the wall. I see what they were going for, but damn it fell short hard which is disappointing

[@AFoxInFlames]

This movie felt so random and just like a bunch usual horror elements turned into Frankensteins monster. Let's throw everything at the drawing board and see what sticks. Oh it all sticks? Let's just do everything! "What aspects of horror do you want to create?" The crew, "Yes."😂❤ No One Will Save You was good. I was more impressed then I thought. I was hyped for this, kept hearing it was pretty good but God, it was terrible.

[@wittypseudonym]

literally paused just to comment: oh my god. that fucking Cheshire Cat looking mug. you have one shot and thats what you get for her face? woof. edit: starting to think the pumpkin motif _might_ point to her looking like a damned jack-o'-lantern

[@vikawerlin3115]

This comment is 3 weeks late, but I just found your channel and have kept your videos on in the background while I work from home! I have binge watched almost all of them, and I wanted to say that your videos are amazing! It is really nice to hear this sort of in depth dive into games and other media.

[@MertKayKay]

You're never late B) Welcome! I'm really glad you like my videos, and I hope I don't distract you too much while you work. Thank you very much

[@Shadowplay4Cats]

So I don’t know if this is on purpose or not, but do you realize you are conflating heavy-handed with ham fisted? Ham handedly sounds so weird

[@MertKayKay]

Yes I completely fudged that

[@Shadowplay4Cats]

@@MertKayKay just meme it. Make it an in joke new viewers will never understand once you’re famous

[@gingeremu4475]

this movie is SO CLOSE to being decent. Imagine instead the movie focused on Peter's growing isolation. We watch as he gets bullied at school and anytime he tries to talk to his parents, they tell him "making friends is hard, you just gotta keep being you." completely dismissing all of his concerns to the point where he starts feeling isolated from his family as well. We get little hints of the abuse Peter suffers through during the movie. His father forces him to kill a rat, and gets mad at him when the child is reluctant. The mother gets cold and snappy towards peter when presented with the drawing. His parents are against him trick or treating but he keeps pushing so they lock him in his room, threatening to put him in the basement if he acts out. This threat immediately freaks peter out, who begins silently crying and physically trying to hide himself despite being locked in his own room. We get the sense that he is terrified of the basement, and its been the ultimate punishment for him if he acts up. While in his room he beings talking to the girl behind the wall, who is nothing but a supportive voice and a being of comfort. We get more clips of him being locked up in his room talking to the voice, confiding in her completely. The voice, having earned peters trust, begins urging him to hurt those that have hurt him. Peter gets freaked out and tries to block out the voice, and has nightmares of him killing his parents only for them to appear like they did in the nightmare sequence. At school, the bullying gets worse and we watch Peter withdraw into himself. His only source of happiness is his pumpkin that does get smashed. In a rage, Peter hurts his bully in a similar way that he had killed the rat, all while hearing the girls voice urging him to do so. He gets expelled and put in the basement as his punishment. The girls voice is stronger in the basement, taking more of a raspy note and her words get more cruel. Gone is the gentle urging, but instead demands that Peter hurt and kill. Peter doesnt seem horrified this time. Instead, he seems calmed by her words. The entire time the teacher has been growing more and more concerned, and since she is new in town, a lot of our exposition comes through via her. We learn peters parents are "protective" because his older sister had been kidnapped on halloween. Ever since the family has gotten more reserved and cold to other towns folk. But, instead of the parents having killed the girl, she literally just got kidnapped. Its revealed that in their paranoia they went from loving parents, to over protective, to abusive trying to keep their son safe. But there abuse has pushed Peter too far. Peter puts the rat poison in his fathers food, burying him with the rat. Peter throws his mother in the basement and leaves her there till she starves to death. He has given into the voice, which sounds monstrous. The teacher goes to investigate, finding Peter and his dead family. Once the abuse was revealed, Peters actions are deemed as self defense and he is put into the foster system. The ending is him in a new home, maybe with the teacher, maybe with a random family- and as he's falling asleep he hears the girl in the wall softly calling for him, waking him up. It is left open ended if the girl is a supernatural element, a literal haunting, or a manifestation of the abuse Peter went through.

[@HitenNoRurouni]

Tru first comment!! Love listening to you talk about horror

[@MertKayKay]

Welcome >:)

[@spitefulwinter]

This reminds me of the movie let the right one in (or let me in for the English version) similar in nature but way better

[@lastbeer]

I don't know what you're talking about, I was hooked from the start! Very entertaining movie! Easily one of the best horrors of 2023! But I must agree the ending was meh.

[@UndeadGirlCyber]

also goodness me, this movie is dark. and I mean lighting-wise. I turned the brightness all the way up and still couldn't see anything.

[@PotatoKing86]

Skill issue

[@exuviast]

what an elaborately bad take on the Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater rhyme

[@zach6974]

“Passed around like your aunt at a swinger party” LMFAO

[@TylerLloyd_2]

By far the standout was the sudden Sam Raimi blasts of gore during that last act. Besides that it clung onto the ideas of parental abuse and didn’t really deal with them in any sort of way.

[@Stormith]

I was SO HYPE seeing that there was a horror movie with Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr but it was very disappointing. Still love them tho!!!

[@lavender317]

The ending reveal absolutely killed the movie for me, if it was like a ghost or something, idk it'd be cliche but it might have at least made some amount of sense, but the fact that the sister was actually real and hidden in the walls and was a weird monster thing?? It just got kinda ridiculous and the design for her was awful

[@Vitoria-ug9cc]

New mertkaykay video lets gooo! In the subject of recent horror movies, did you watch Talk to me? A24 never disappoints.

[@MertKayKay]

Omg I tried to watch that yesterday but my completely legal download kept wigging out so I barely made it 20 minutes. It seems amazing! I'm excited to enjoy it in its entirety.

[@very_nervous133]

Mike Stoklasa will not agree with this statement!

[@NatBKyiv]

Spiderman spinoff that we deserved

[@hogonalog406]

Okay, and as sad as this is, I think they chose the pumpkin motif solely for the purpose of setting up the rat poison scene. Like, they had the conversation of how will Peter administer the poison? I know, make the poison cinnamony, and make them obsessed with pumpkins.

[@TheRealRehman]

How it should have ended: Parent's "your sister is a literal monster but we didnt want to kill her as she is our child. However, since she has now set her targets on you, we have no choice. Also heres a Nintendo Switch, we all think its weird you just sit on your bed all day doing nothing." Kid "sweet" *The end*

[@manofmanymasks4032]

So it took me far to long to notice my mistake but I thought you were saying mister vine the entire time. It confused me to the point I started paying more attention to her face trying to see if she used to be a he because apparently that made more sense to me than me mishearing her name

[@pigeontoes5421]

FINALLY, SOMEONE SAYS IT. This movie was AWFUL and seeing everyone praise it made me feel like i was going insane| Like, did we watch the same movie???

[@seon3403]

I'm stunned. I'm not even going to watch the video but the fact someone thinks this is anything except a masterpiece is mind boggling to me

[@CrunchRatSupreem]

Your horror media videos are an absolute vibe

[@MachoLangelo]

I watched this movie last week and I feel like the 6/10 score is on point. It's really nothing groundbreaking or special but the acting and the cinematography really holds it up. I admit the daughters design was a little underwhelming but at that point I accepted it like I accepted the monster designs from Krampus or Trick or Treat, which are better campy horror films in my opinion. But I feel like your assumptions about the parents knowing that the daughter was still alive in the walls was a false assumption to make. I thought they didn't know she was still alive after all the years their son was growing up, they just assumed she was dead. And at that point I took the movie on as a fantasy horror, like there are parts of this story that aren't gonna be meant to be taken as realistically accurate. Kinda like a Goosebumps episode, except way less Canadian and the gore and violence turned up to 10 near the end of the film. Idk. I enjoyed this film and its campy-ness like I did with Krampus or Trick or Treat. Sure its not as good as those two, but I appreciated it. 6/10. Fitting score.

[@kyacross]

my gf and I watched this a few weeks back and I genuinely thought I had dreamt it up because it was just so weird and contradictory😭

[@ingvarsuigin609]

Famously, XKCD on how to read 10-star ratings goes 10 is fake, 9 is a masterpiece, 8 is good, less than 7 is trash. You open by saying this movie is a 6.

[@J3sus-kun]

I'd say I enjoyed around half to 3/4s of the movie, not because it was necessarily great, but it felt like it might be going somewhere interesting. And then we get to the monster reveal and everything kinda just fell apart entirely. There was no more tension, just some obvious kills and the most basic ending they could come up with.

[@coltonwilkie241]

If you want to watch a really bad slop horror movie you should definitely watch The Unholy. The only saving grace in it is Jeffrey Dean Morgan and even he sounds like he'd rather be dead than in that movie.

[@goranisacson2502]

Wow, I actually watched that movie not a day ago on Netflix, since it was being taken out of circulation in my country and I was curious. While I would not say it was bad slop, I also recognize the further away from it that I get, that I really only feel that way because I liked the nature scenes in it. Which might not be a glowing review of a horrror movie- I wasn't really ever scared or cared much for the characters due to the girl being portrayed in the story as a vulnerable girl finally connecting to the outside world but acted like she was five seconds away from a fire and brimstone Evangelical sermon and Jeffrey Dean Morgan was really good at portraying an apathetic sleaze... that I think the film wanted me to see in a MUCH better light than I actually did. Man that movie was pretty dull when I think about it... but I guess I feel like there's a difference between being really BAD and just dull.

[@coltonwilkie241]

@@goranisacson2502 That's fair. I thought it was just bad and boring. Easily some of the worst CGI I've ever seen in a horror movie and the amount of times it tries to do a jumpscare and completely fail at it is pretty laughable. I guess another positive is the demon is kinda cool looking up until they show her face. Should've been a TV show. The story felt rushed IMO.

[@goranisacson2502]

@@coltonwilkie241 I can't disagree that the jumpscares were incredibly inefficient- like I said, I never felt scared by her appearances, it was always some real "oooh the music silent now and we're REEEAAALLLYYY focusing on this one dark corner of the room, I WONDER if something spoopy is gonna pop out now"- type of material. Not to mention that when I thought about it, the monster made use of Jeffrey Dean Morgans connections to spread awareness of it, but still did wmthose weird "hanging out in the background and stalking you and making weird ghost-stuff happen around you" when like... it's explicit plan was to make sure he was doing it's bidding unknowingly. WHY then would it do weird creeoy ghost-stuff around him to put him on edge? Unless, you know, the writer wanted to include a scare because it had been a few minutes since the last one and we needed to remind the audience this is supposed to be a scary movie. But I think that is ultimately why I think I don't... really DISAGREE that it's bad, but more that it's not a good fit for videos like this because it's bad in such a DULL, routine kind of way. This movie had actors who acted their pants off according to Mert but were prevented from doing good performances because the script made it so that no one has a consistent character. The plot is so ambitious / all over the place that it has three movies in one, and I feel like this deep dive spoke a lot about how the movie has ideas but not the talent to do something good with them. The Unholy... I truly do struggle to come up with an idea, or an interesting thing to say about it. It is just that mundane and lacking in interesting things. It's a story that doesn't even have the decency to be bad enough that it grows a certain sense of fun, you know?

[@Levi-jz5rv]

Hey keep up the work! Your work is always the highlight of my day! I love the clear work and care you put into your work. Your witty and insightful commentary is an absolute delight. Plus the additional bonus appearance of your cat is pretty great too 😂.

[@MertKayKay]

Two cats now Levi!! :D Soon I will have a ZOO

[@Levi-jz5rv]

@MertKayKay I am here to fully support you getting a zoo!!! May I recommend Pygmy goats or the European Hedgehog? 👀💚

[@prettyevil6662000]

While this movie was super disappointing for many of the same reasons, I was relieved the sister in the wall wasn't just in his head. Through the middle part I was getting so worried it was going to be another 'mentally ill person murders a bunch of people' plot. But then it wasn't which was good, but also baffling because why are the parents in denial that he's talking to his sister they know is in the walls? But like you said, the movie does seem like it had a bunch of different writers who were never allowed to speak to each other while writing their own parts. The middle writer 100% thought it was a mental illness is a monster movie while the final act writer wanted a real monster movie. (And I'm convinced the opening was just snatched from a generic Lifetime drama movie about school bullying). You can actually see the seams where each writer was taking their own script before someone merged them all together. One writer wanted a movie about the parents being abusive to their deformed daughter and then murdering someone to hide their dark family secret - at which point the mercy to spiders callback would have made perfect sense as the sister was a victim of abuse and only looked monstrous while the parents were the real monsters. Another writer wanted a movie about abuse and parental denial leading to mental illness escalating into violence. And the final one wanted a basic spider girl monster movie. Whoever merged these three scripts needs to sit in the corner and think about what they did, because they simply do not work together. Any of the three individual scripts would have been serviceable, but all mashed together they just made a gross mess that says nothing.

[@starjkurage]

Honesty i think the movie's stiry would've been better if the monster was a vengeful spirit and the dead body buried in the garden was her, that way they could've had the supernatural aspect and make the parents more of a threat Edit: me and my girlfriend expected this movie to be like a live action Coraline do to alot of tiktoks saying it seems to be like one and i was honesty disappointed

[@lukekebell3146]

A very fun & interesting review even if the film itself is not so great😂. Ngl I was actually thinking of re-watching one of you're reviews when i got this notification so thank you for answering my call of bordem 😅. I would think a film called cobweb would have a stronger spider theme than what viewers got. Shame. Also what was with that FACE! 🤢🤣

[@hiide0us123]

Your remark about Anthony Starr is so real :')

[@MertKayKay]

you get me :')

[@warhedd]

It has elements I love but overall its quite silly. The end really destroys it

[@Pdasniper]

There is a better version of this plot in a great creepypasta called Campfire Tales by William Rayne. In it, the basement door is a real reinforced structure introduced early on. The brother is aware of the sisters existence and she shares a lot of details with him, spinning her own narrative. The parents are fundamentally unhappy while trying desperately to have a normal life. Parent really love the brother and clearly hate the sister. The only pain they bring to the brother is by unsuccessfuly trying to teach him why the sister needs to remain locked. Their failure to do is what brings us to the end of the tale. Weirdly enough, this story too has tonal shifts, starting, as the name implies, as the campfire tale. I urge you to give it a read or a listen on Dark Somnium channel. Campfire tails is what Cobweb could have been

[@davidharper238]

"It's easy to surprise people if you lie to them" - low effort writing

[@kiillabytez]

It was better than 95% of the rest of the BS that came out this year. Don't know what YOU were watching.

[@alejotinganell5653]

Great in-depth review! Whether you make a video essay that builds up from a very interesting thesis that leads to abundant ideas to exploit, a more classical review of a piece of media, or an analysis of a particular subject inside that piece of media, you always hit the nail on the head. Keep up the good work! ❤️

[@MertKayKay]

Thank you so much 😁

[@SillyDale]

it honestly feels like the babadook but so much worse

[@DasKame]

At least not a 10th Part of Hellraiser, Texas Chanssaw Massacre and Saw....

[@zerokaoningyo3509]

thank you for always subtitling your videos!!! i really enjoy them but i am hoh

[@danstevens4249]

Well put praising the performances of Lizzy Caplan and our lord and savior Anthony Starr. I absolutely was invested for the first 20 minutes before it showed its hand and devolved into a casserole of nonsense.

[@PunishedDad]

girl got that certified cool drip

[@MissileGT]

Another example of an horror movie that switches tone/plot dramatically between acts and it works is Barbarian. I'm open for more Horror movies that try this, but it is a shame that Cobweb failed miserably at executing those big swings.

What? It was a great movie! It runs circles around the franchises like Scream and Saw, which have been sickeningly overdone.

I agree. All these franchises are just money grabs. This film was entertaining and original.