The chilling mystery Weapons, writer-director Zach Cregger’s follow-up to 2022’s out-of-nowhere camp hit Barbarian, finds the The Whitest Kids U’ Know alum following the sketch comedy-to-horror filmmaking path paved by Jordan Peele. It’s a formally and narratively more ambitious movie than his previous effort, telling its twisty-turny tale through the eyes of six different characters, each contributing their own fragments to the master narrative. At times, the chronology overlaps and we see the same scene from a different perspective but Cregger mostly uses the technique to parse out bits of information until the entire picture is filled in. While it falls victim to the logic gaps and plot holes that have plagued multi-layered stories before it, the film is a freaky fun puzzle box to unlock and contains some of the year’s best scares to boot.
Set in the fictitious small town of Maybrook, Weapons opens with elementary school teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) arriving at her classroom with only one of her 18 students, Alex (Cary Christopher), in attendance. The ensuing police investigation reveals that the other 17 kids all woke up at 2:17 AM the previous night and ran out of the respective houses, vanishing into the dark. As days and weeks go by with no further understanding of what caused this tragically bizarre event, the parents of the missing children like Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) gradually turn on Justine and press the school principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong) for answers. Also feeling the pressure from desperate townspeople are police captain Ed Locke (Toby Huss) and his son-in-law officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich), the latter of whom is looking to rekindle a flame with Justine.
Through creepy bookend voiceovers, the first of which sets up a story in which “a lot of people die in a lot of weird ways”, Weapons percolates with the unease we feel collectively when faced with the unimaginable. In the wake of tragedy, we can’t accept that there is no solution and no way to prevent its future occurrence. The fractured narrative underscores the social fissures that the disappearance creates between the people of Maybrook, who have a much more difficult time working the problem separately than if they had done so together from the start. As the storyteller, Cregger delights in patiently putting the pieces together while simultaneously including numerous terrifying moments designed to make us jump out of our seats. A night-set scene, in which Justine is asleep in her car, is a masterclass in how lighting, sound design and a petrifying performance can lend themselves to a perfect horror setpiece.
Like many horror outings, Weapons‘ spookiest scenes are set in the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole town should be asleep but its citizens are burdened by somnambulance and unshakeable nightmares. But even during the daytime moments, cinematographer Larkin Seiple is able to carry over a half-awake nerviness to the shot composition that makes everything feel that much more unpredictable. Much like DP Roger Deakins accomplished in 2013’s Prisoners — another small-town thriller centered around missing kids — Seiple drenches each frame with a visualized version of the dread and dreariness that fill our characters. If you can see this film in IMAX, it’s worth the upgrade to get a better glimpse into the shadows and darkness on the edge of town.
Given its story structure, Weapons doesn’t have quite as much time as I’d prefer to more deeply develop its characters but the talented ensemble does a great job imbuing their roles with ardor and unexpected bits of humor too. Josh Brolin and Julia Garner turn in reliably great work crashing up against one another as types they’ve played before, the former as a gruff everyman looking for justice and the latter as a troubled young woman looking for solace. Besides another actor whose presence is best left to be discovered, the movie’s secret weapon may be Austin Abrams as a drug addict who’s more credible than the rest of the community seems to think. Weapons doesn’t quite hit all the ambitious targets it’s shooting for but it shows that Cregger is anything but a one-hit wonder after Barbarian and has the chops to go the distance as a filmmaker.
Score – 3.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Nobody 2, an action comedy starring Bob Odenkirk and Connie Nielsen, following a former lethal assassin whose violent past catches up with him once again, this time on summer vacation with his family.
Also playing only in theaters is Witchboard, a horror remake starring Madison Iseman and Aaron Dominguez, involving a cursed spirit board which awakens dark forces and drags a young couple into a deadly game of possession and deception.
Streaming on Netflix is Night Always Comes, a crime thriller starring Vanessa Kirby and Jennifer Jason Leigh, telling the story of a desperate woman who sets out on a dangerous odyssey, confronting her own dark past over the course of one propulsive night.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup