Horst_In_Translation Review of The Spiderwebhouse

The Spiderwebhouse (2015)

Aesthetic and atmospheric, but just too fictitious for my taste

[4/10 · 21 October 2017]

"Im Spinnwebhaus" or "Das Spinnwebhaus" or "(The) Spiderwebhouse" is a German 90-minute film from 2015, so this one is still fairly new and fresh overall. For the director it was the very first full feature film effort and for that the outcome is decent. The writer has worked on more known stuff in the past, but she also did an okay job here overall. Both are females by the way. The cast includes some names that German film buffs have come across for sure like Trepte, Testud and Koeberlin, even if all of them are supporting actors only. Still I'd say they did okay with what they were given, especially Testud (as expected) and Koeberlin was a positive surprise too as this film here was the complete opposite of the baity pseudo-important stuff he has shown up in on many other occasions. But it is all about the kids, especially the oldest one who has to take care of everything involving his younger siblings when their mother leaves for a pretty long time. I must sadly agree with the other reviewer who said the child actor was not up to the challenge of carrying the film for a pretty long time. This is one of the weakest problems, but I also had problems with the general plot idea of the children managing to stay on their own for such a long time. It is a problem if a film that has authenticity and realism as top priorities has a core plot like that that I found hard to believe. It's quite a pity actually as the attention to detail in Stuttmann's screenplay was good, pretty convincing most of the time. I also had a problem here and there with Trepte's character, but that may also be because of personal bias as I am not a great fan of the actor. And I did like the creative choice for black-and-white, which is probably more common again here in Germany after the great success of The White Ribbon". But that is definitely personal bias too as I love modern b&w films. Here it fits very well. Sadly overall I must say that mediocrity and some weak core decisions result in me giving these 1.5 hours a thumbs-down. A bit of a pity as I certainly wanted to like this one more than I did. Don't watch.