Weapons. 2025.
Written and Directed by Zach Cregger.
Starring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Toby Huss, Austin Abrams, June Diane Raphael, Amy Madigan, Cary Christopher, Clayton Farris, Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera, Luke Speakman, Melissa Ponzio, Sarah Kopkin, and Sergio Duque.
SYNOPSIS:
When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
Between Weapons and writer/director Zach Cregger’s feature debut Barbarian, it’s safe to say unpredictability is one of his cinematic weapons. Despite some astonishing tonal balance of eerie mystery, grotesque horror, and gleefully twisted humor, that reliance on misdirection, while effective, is also a glaring weakness.
Touted as inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece Magnolia (one of the greatest films ever made, according to this critic), the story switches character perspectives in a chapter-like structure as a small town seeks answers on the disappearance of one particular classroom of children, except for one. Some opening voiceover narration from a child clues viewers into two things: this investigation has gone on for roughly 30 days, yielding no results, and that there will be some humor involved as she amusingly suggests perhaps the police department has given up from embarrassment of not being able to crack the case.
The only information we and the characters have to go on is that at exactly 2:17 AM, 17 children, all students of Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) woke up, seemingly sleepwalked downstairs, went right out the front door arms outstretched into a Wolverine-reminiscent ready-to-attack pose (implying that they have been weaponized for something), and ran off into the darkness never to be seen again. With ominous atmosphere and child actors strikingly capturing unsettling, trance-like movements (courtesy of Larkin Seiple’s spooky cinematography), the sequence boldly pulls us into this mystery without understanding who these kids are or what might have caused them to do this.
Again, that’s all but one, as Alex (Cary Christopher) is the only student who showed up to class. Now, a film would naturally explore what’s going on in his life and what might be different from his peers. Weapons doesn’t. Part of that voiceover narration insists that the real story didn’t start until 30 days later, when the town’s residents ramped up hostility toward Justine being involved with the disappearance of the children, leveling accusations that she must be a witch (which is also spray-tagged on her car). It’s a dishonest statement, as this narrative is all about misdirection until reaching Alex’s chapter, which takes viewers back to the beginning, before any of his classmates went missing.
Misdirection and red herrings also aren’t inherently bad. The narrative here veers between characters, touching on everything from law enforcement incompetence to society’s indifference toward the case. Without giving too much away, one of the sharpest segments comes from a junkie played by Austin Abrams, more concerned with a $50,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of the children than saving lives. Even Justine, who persistently pleads with school superintendent Andrew (Benedict Wong) to talk to Alex, wants to do so out of her personal confusion and emotional pain, handwaving away what’s best for the already traumatized child.
Zach Cregger also takes time to dive into other aspects of their personal lives, such as Justine’s connection to an ex-boyfriend, a bumbling police officer (Alden Ehrenreich) she hopes to manipulate for information, making it evident that her motivations and methods for solving this mystery are misplaced and misguided.
There is also the perspective of the most outspoken of the parents, Archer (Josh Brolin), determined to prove that Justine knows something (by digging into her past, which may contain baggage irrelevant to the mystery), yet also the most sympathetic of the bunch. He is hopelessly confused and sad, watching doorbell ringer camera footage of his son Matthew creepily walking away from home, but determined to pinpoint a vague idea of where the kids were going by collaborating with the other parents and watching their footage, all to triangulate that location on a map.
The crippling issue with this perspective approach, which repeatedly jumps backward in time and sometimes organically crosses over into the same scene involving multiple characters, is that whenever the horror part of Weapons comes to the forefront (discounting lame nightmare scenes that plague every modern horror film nowadays, although the imagery is disturbing here, and there is a self-aware, hilarious subversive reaction), that mounting dread and escalating momentum is undercut by jumping back in time.
It’s also unfairly toying with the audience to the point where even mentioning a particular character and which actor delivers a chilling performance is essentially a major spoiler. A chronological version of this story would likely never work, but the current structure is frustrating and nearly sinks the experience. There is just enough characterization and reasons to care about these people to prevent the narrative from collapsing.
Fortunately, Zach Cregger takes Weapons to a wholly original and haunting place for its third act, that, gaps in logic be damned, also builds to demented brilliance, a one-two stabbing of pure horror followed up by a release of diabolical laughter. That’s a weapon Zach Cregger has mastered, even if the rest of this film is often on the verge of collapsing under its ambition, scope, and structure.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
