The Iron Claw (2023 film)

Category: Biographical Drama

Directed by: Sean Durkin

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Movies based on professional wrestling have been few and far between. From memory, there has been The Wrestler from back in the 2000s by Darren Aranovsky, and also Ready To Rumble (the movie that helped kill WCW) though there have been a couple of mini-series here and there, as well as documentaries like You Cannot Kill David Arquette and the Dark Side Of The Ring series.

Now, being a pro wrestling nut myself, I have always been keen to watch this movie, but wanted to avoid the hype and watch it in my own time and at my own pace. Which is something I regret - this movie is easily Best In Class!

To explain the plot, I will need to explain and expand on some wrestling terms as I go along. Here we go - The Iron Claw.

The plot:

The Iron Claw is the (mostly true) story of the Von Erich family and comes from the name of the finishing move used by Fritz Von Erich and his sons throughout their professional wrestling careers. In professional wrestling, a finishing move is the move that a wrestler performs that either causes the opponent to submit or incapacitates them to be pinned for a three-count - thus finishing the match. So in this case, The Iron Claw was when Von Erich would place his fingers around the top of your skull and squeeze, either causing you to submit or for you to forget your shoulders are on the mat for a three count.

Cobweb (2023 film)

Category: Creature horror

Directed by: Samuel Bodin

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The Ring meets Home Alone meets Longlegs - this was my impression as I got watching up this creature horror starring Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr, Woody Norman and Cleopatra Coleman.

And quite surprising is that Seth Rogen, known for his comic acting, was actually a producer of this film!

Can he make a horror? Let's find out after the plot!

The plot:

Peter (Norman) is the son of Carol and Mark (Caplan and Starr) who raise him in the suburbs of somewhere cold America (where is never specified, though I think somewhere north-east) in a large, creaky old house, but are emotionally distant and far from nurturing. Alongside this, Peter is having problems with a bully at school, Brian (Luke Busey), though the growing bond bewteen Peter and his teacher, Miss Devine (Coleman) helps.

However, Peter's biggest problem is that at night, he hears what initially begins as tapping from behind his bedroom wall which then becomes a voice he starts having conversations which that his parents brush off as being the result of an overly active child's imagination.