Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema Reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Weapons

Writer/Director: Zach Creggers

Don’t read this review. Seriously. Stop here. Save it if you must, until after you see the movie. Yes, this is one of those “try to avoid all information before seeing it” kind of movie, and not because there’s some terrible twist—instead, because the way it reveals its story is captivating and intricate.

Seventeen children disappear overnight, seen on Ring cameras moving swiftly and strangely into the night, arms extended. They all left their homes at 2:17 am. They were all from the same class. Only one student didn’t disappear. Justine Gandy (Julia Garner, allowed here to let her let loose her considerable acting chops), the class’s teacher, falls under the town’s angry suspicion. This is the deceptively simple setup for Weapons. I thought I’d cottoned to its secret early on, when in a dream a massive, spaceship-like assault rifle looms eerily over a house. But I was wrong.

Justine is placed on leave. She starts drinking, carrying on with a local cop. Intensely curious and empathetic, hurt by the negative attention, she begins, despite her principal’s wishes, following the young boy who didn’t disappear. The windows of his house are covered in newspaper. It appears that his parents are inside, silent and still. Justine is joined in her unofficial investigation by one of the fathers (Josh Brolin). The cop with whom she’s carrying on complicates matters, as does interference from a local miscreant and, separately, from the school principal.

The movie jumps back in the narrative several times, showing us the occurrences from different points of view. We meet the remaining student’s aunt, a garishly clad and made-up enigma, who uses strange witchcraft on the boy’s parents—and who may be the key to the entire mystery. The movie’s explosive, startling ending also manages to be hilarious without compromising the horrors.

Weapons is everything a horror movie should be. Mysterious. Startling. Eerie. Inventive. Violent. Sad. Hysterically funny. It isn’t the same old horror concept rehashed. The director’s previous feature, Barbarian, was similarly inventive, if different in tone and execution. I’m excited to see what Cregger has in store next.