Spiders and panels – Weekend
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“The Web of Fear” is being released, the feature debut of Sebastian Vanicek, a strong social horror about an invasion of spiders, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Having just celebrated his thirtieth birthday, firebrand Caleb (Theo Christin) is trying his best to live under the vaults of the Picasso Arena residential complex in a Parisian suburb: he sells exclusive sneakers, tries to stay away from both the police and drug dealers, endlessly quarrels with his younger sister and her suitors. , and for peace of mind, he immerses himself in his collection of various exotic creatures. One day, Caleb, without advertising it too much, borrows a magnificent specimen of a rare and extremely dangerous desert spider from a fellow hobbyist, names it Rihanna and, for starters, places it in a box of regular Nikes intended for sale. Rihanna doesn’t want to sit in a box at all, so she gets out and begins to multiply at an alarming speed. In a matter of hours, the monstrous masterpiece of urban architecture of the 1980s, along with most of its inhabitants, finds itself swaddled in a merciless web, and Caleb and his few surviving friends will have to hide from hordes of eight-legged killers, who, for some unknown reason, are also increasing in size.
Last year, Sebastian Vanicek’s feature-length debut closed the Critics’ Week in Venice, was awarded at the world’s main genre film festivals (special jury prize in Sitges; best horror and best director at the Fantastic Fest in Austin) and was nominated for a Cesar in the categories ” best debut” and “best special effects”. To this should be added the almost unanimous enthusiasm of critics and viewers (enthusiasm ranges from “the best spider horror in the history of cinema” to “this is exactly what a real debut should look like”), an in all respects successful agreement with Netflix, as well as lightning-fast and Vanicek’s title of “the new Alexander Azha” was almost officially assigned to him.
Not all of these delights are fully deserved (Aja himself debuted with a much crazier and more stunning picture), but if we consider Vanicek’s “The Web” not as a newly minted cult classic, but as a seasonal entertainment, then it seems woven not only for fear, but also for conscience. The film may seem – and in fact is – overly serious. There was also a social commentary in the spirit of Romero or Carpenter: the security forces, who appeared on the spot seemingly on a rescue mission, pose no less a danger to the surviving heroes than the offspring of Rihanna. But in these times, this is perhaps preferable to the kind of trash-talk that is generally considered adequate when it comes to arachnids, such as the successful but categorically buffoonish “Attack of the Spiders” by Ellory Elkaem.
It’s especially joyful that in “The Web of Fear” from the first minutes one can sense a very correct cinematic background: already the very first, even before the credits, scene in the desert is definitely inspired by the opening of “The Exorcist”. And when the action really picks up, the heroes of “The Web of Fear” seem to find themselves alternately inside different, but surprisingly suitable films of past years. Most of all, it’s similar to how the cartoon characters of Joe Dante’s “Looney Tunes: Back in Business” ran through the halls of the Louvre and either got stuck in Dali’s surreal swamps or disintegrated into abstract pixels. Or Spider-Man’s travels through the multiverses. And most of all – the journey through space and time, shown in the second part of “The Wax Museum” by Anthony Hickox. Starting with The Exorcist, Vanicek first whips up suburban dysfunction in the spirit of Mathieu Kassovitz’s The Hate, then maneuvers somewhere between Frank Marshall’s Arachnophobia and Joe Cornish’s Strangers on the Block, then achieves true perfection in this technique, filming one of episodes towards the end are absolutely indistinguishable from the third “Aliens” by David Fincher, and finally he mixed “Dredd” by Alex Garland and Pete Travis and “The Raid” by Gareth Evans in explosive proportions. There is absolutely nothing to complain about here, since everything was done with great understanding and taste. But next time we’ll be able to understand how Vanicek himself films and what his unique personality is.
In theaters from April 18
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