10 Most Disappointing Villains From Recent Horror Movies

A classic case of a horror villain better left to our own insidious imaginations.

Cobweb (2023) builds the requisite suspense right from the off, as troubled child Peter (Woody Norman) starts hearing bumps in the night and scratching behind one of his bedroom walls. He then proceeds to knock on the wall, which is returned in kind. Soon after, a young girl's voice whispers beyond the wall and begins talking to Peter, eventually revealing to him that she's... his sister, Sarah.

At this point, we're signposted into believing Peter's parents Carol (Lizzi Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr) are the monsters of this piece for imprisoning their daughter. Especially Mark, who channels his inner Homelander by forcing his son to stay in the cobweb-covered basement following a violent transgression with a nasty school bully.

So far, so sinisterly good. And the only glimpse we've had of sweet-sounding Sarah is a creepy moment of seeing an eye through a hole in the wall. However, when Peter poisons his parents to death on Sarah's manipulative instructions and lets her out, Cobweb suddenly descends into hammy horror, as Monster Sarah releases all her pent-up, bloodlusting rage on, admittedly, a bunch of d**kheads.

At this point, she reveals herself in all her silliness glory by scurrying around in questionable CGI, with exceedingly long hair dangling down that's less scary Samara Morgan and more risible Rapunzel - plus a farcical face that shows she's clearly one of Jumba's Experiments gone catastrophically wrong.

So, even though Carol and Mark weren't exactly role model parents towards either of their children, you can understand their rationale for keeping their firstborn hidden from society. That and the fact that she was a murderous monster, admittedly.