Into The Spider-Verse

French director Samuel Bodin talks about horror film Cobweb, his debut feature

- IAN BERRIMAN

KNOCK KNOCK! WHO'S THERE? Sorry, we can't say: spoilers! That's the question at the heart of new chiller Cobweb. It centres on eight-year-old Peter, who starts to hear unexplained thumps coming from behind his bedroom wall. Rats, his dad suggests - except rats don't usually whisper...

Could it be a ghost? Many years ago, a neighbourhood girl went missing while trick or treating. As the film progresses, Peter's mother (Cloverfield's Lizzy Caplan) and father (The Boys' Homelander, Antony Starr) start to seem increasingly suspicious... We won't ruin it for you. Let's just say that the film keeps you guessing, delivering several effective twists.

Cobweb represented "a lot of first times" for French director Samuel Bodin: first feature; first time working in English; first time adapting someone else's work. The script came his way after producers at Lionsgate were impressed by Marianne, the 2019 horror series he wrote and directed for Netflix.

"I loved the fact it was very simple," he tells Red Alert. "It's very difficult to make a simple script, that is clear on everything. There is the father, the mother, the teacher [Cleopatra Coleman's Miss Devine] and the mystery of it.