Lionsgate Home Entertainment Targets Sept. 12 Director Sam Bodin's Haunted House Thriller Cobweb • "Helpers" Are Quick To Take Advantage Of The Early Digitial Window

Director Sam Bodin’s haunted house thriller, Cobweb, will be making its way to the home entertainment packaged media marketplace on Sept. 12 as stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray buying selections.

The ARR is a zippy 53 days and box office receipts for the film’s July 21 limited theatrical release remain unreported.   

 

This is a Val Lawton-like horror entry … the “monster” just taps, taps, taps on the walls and when eight-year-old Peter (Woody Norman — C’mon C’mon), finally makes contact, “she” — claiming to be Sarah — remains unseen.   

 

Sarah eventually convinces him that his parents, Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr) are the real monsters.  The pair live up to that billing and behave as if their own son is a bother, a pesky little nuisance … Peter comes to find that disturbing.

 

We won’t give away the MacGuffin here, but Bodin’s Cobweb has all the right elements for a Halloween-season theatrical release, not a mid-summer limited run.  It feels rushed … almost thrown away as an afterthought.   Why?

 

This feeling of being rushed is amplified by the Aug. 11 VOD/Digital window.   That is a full 30 days before the “real” DVD and Blu-ray editions are available.  

That misplaced window, while it may generate immediate cash-flow for Lionsgate, opens up the film to “helper” activity — a pristine master supplied willingly by the studio — and that’s exactly what has happened.  Early “helper” DVD and Blu-ray editions are now available.

 

Bonus goodies for the legit versions — consumers can’t tell the difference (or don’t care) and may skip the extras for a “helper” copy already in hand — are a trio of production featurettes: “Becoming “The Girl,” “Through the Eyes of a Child” and “A Primal Fear.”