- Directed by Samuel Bodin
- Written by Chris Thomas Devlin
- Stars Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr, Cleopatra Coleman
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGY0icwlDGY
Spoiler Free Zone
Which strand of the web is this story going to follow? Hard to say, but you should watch this one if you want to see a very gripping and well-made movie. The script, cast, and effects are all really good.
Synopsis
One week before Halloween. We get glimpses into little Peter’s life; he goes to school, takes piano lessons, and looks sad. Late that night, he hears something moving around, making noise inside the walls of his bedroom. He gets up and turns on the light, but there’s nothing there. He knocks on the wall, and something knocks back. He goes to wake up his mother, but she doesn’t hear anything when she knocks. She says all the scary things are in his head. Credits roll.
At school, Miss Devine is the new long-term substitute teacher. Brian, another student, bullies Peter and threatens him with the coming recess. The new teacher lets him stay inside at recess to talk about Halloween. She shows him how to dispose of a spider.
When he talks to his parents about trick-or-treating, his parents say he can’t go. His father, Mark, tells him about the little girl down the street who vanished on Halloween a few years ago. That’s why they don’t want him to go out for Halloween. That night, he hears a girl’s voice calling his name in his room. This time, Mark listens and doesn’t hear anything. He says maybe it’s rats, and he can fix that. They both put down rat poison the next day.
Peter makes a disturbing “Help me” drawing at school, so Ms Devine comes to see Carol, Peter’s mother. Carol blows it off as imagination and dismisses the teacher very quickly. Carol then confronts Peter about the pictures. He says he’s not asking for help, “She is.”
“Peter. Don’t be scared. I just want to talk,” says the voice in the wall that night. She says she just wants to be his friend. At school, Brian smashes Peter’s pumpkin. The girl in the wall tells Peter to stand up for himself. The next day, Brian brings Peter a new pumpkin and apologizes, clearly because grownups made him do it and not because he’s sorry. Peter decides to make Brian afraid of him. Peter pushes Brian down the stairs and breaks his leg, going further with things than he meant to.
Peter’s parents are not pleased. Mark pushes the refrigerator away from the door and puts Peter into the locked basement, which upsets Carol. The basement is not a nice place. Once Peter is down there, they push the fridge back over the door.
Ms Devine and the principal talk about Peter and that she shouldn’t have gone to Peter’s house. The principal tells her about the missing girl, which is probably why his parents are so overprotective. She starts researching the case online. She goes back to the house to return a graded math quiz to Peter, with her phone number subtly written in the corner and meets Mark. The parents get annoyed with her and start getting rude. They say that Peter will be home-schooled from now on. Peter starts beating on the wall, but no one can hear him because the dryer’s running. Mark is very threatening, so Devine leaves quickly.
Mark and Carol let Peter out, and he goes back to his bedroom after apologizing for lying about the voice. He knows better, and the voice warns him that his parents aren’t what they seem. She tells him about a hole in the wallpaper where he can see her, but she’s been in there too long and is probably scary-looking. “I’m your sister. I’ve been waiting for you to be big enough to help me escape.” Peter has some pretty wild dreams that night.
The voice tells Peter to dig in the pumpkin patch, and when he does, he finds a skull. The voice tells him that she asked a girl for help one Halloween, and their parents killed the girl. Peter calls Devine and asks for help but gets caught by Carol, who covers up and sends him to his room. She notices the hole in the wall in Peter’s room and wants to know, “What did she tell you?”
“They know. They’re going to kill us,” says the voice. When Mark gets home, he and Peter go out to the garden to clean up the dead, rotting pumpkins.
We see that Brian from school hasn’t forgotten about Peter, and he and his older friends are planning some kind of serious mischief. It’s Halloween, and Carol yells at the trick-or-treaters to go away. Mark notices that the soup tastes different and that Peter isn’t eating any of it. “Peter. Did you put rat poison in the soup?”
Yes, he did.
Mark collapses after vomiting blood. Carol chases Peter with a knife until it hits her as well. She warns, “Peter– don’t let her out.”
Peter then slides the huge grandfather clock away from the wall, revealing the secret door and unlocks the giant lock on it. There’s a maniacal laugh, and we see clawed fingers reach out from inside.
The doorbell rings. It’s broke-leg Brian and his masked buddies. The door opens and they go inside to mess the place up. The girl makes short work of them as Brian finds Carol’s body. Soon, only Peter remains in the house.
Ms Devine is out in her car thinking about all that’s happened; she can’t let it go. The girl explains the situation to Peter before locking him up in her prison. Devine comes inside and is immediately attacked; Peter yells for her to “Run!”
Devine frees Peter, and they run for the door. She gets out, but he doesn’t. He wakes up in a pit that he can’t climb out of. His sister climbs down to reveal herself. Peter does a reverse-Rapunzel and climbs out using her hair. Devine attacks and Peter locks his sister in the pit. “It’s in our blood. You killed Mom and Dad. You’re just like me.”
The sister gives Peter the most ominous warning of all time as they leave.
Commentary
In the very first scene, we noticed that the interior layout of Peter’s bedroom could not possibly physically match the exterior shots of the house; the windows and doors weren’t in the right places. Continuity, people! Devine has a phone, so why didn’t she call 911 after her first encounter with the monster?
There are a few fun turns here. Who’s the real monster?
The creature effects are really good here. The girl is all spider-like, but still technically human.
That was surprisingly good and didn’t go at all where it looked like where it was going. Nice!