A mystery has rocked Maybrook, Pennsylvania as 17 out of the 18 students in the class taught by Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) have gone missing. For an unknown reason, at 2:17 AM they all ran out of their homes, with their arms stretched out like mini airplanes soaring down the street, and vanished without a trace. It is this brilliant premise that pulls audiences into Zack Cregger’s latest horror thriller Weapons.
Taking inspiration from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, with Alden Ehrenreich’s character Paul Morgan, a police officer on a downward spiral, serving as a dead ringer for John C. Reilly’s Officer Jim Kurring in Anderson’s masterpiece, Cregger’s film finds plenty of chills in the uncontrollable nature of loss and the fear it induces.
Playing up real suburban paranoia around child abductions, Weapons highlights how a sense of hopelessness can lead individuals down a dark path.
For Justine, a dedicated educator who has been known to blur the lines of what is acceptable, the disappearance of the children leads her straight to the bottle. Viewed by the parents as the main culprit, she swifts between making poor decisions, like connecting with ex-boyfriend Paul, who is married to Donna (June Diane Raphael), the daughter of his boss, and her desire for answers. Believing that the key to unlocking the mystery lies in her lone remaining student Alex Lilley (Cary Christopher), and ignoring her principal’s (Benedict Wong) wishes to let the police do their job, Justine embarks on her own investigation that could cost her more than her career.
The concerned teacher is not the only one who decides to take the law in their own hands. Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), father of one of the missing children, and the most vocal parent when it comes to hurling accusations against Justine, has grown frustrated by the lack of progress in the police investigation. Perplexed by what would propel his son to run off in the direction he did, the concerned father frantically races to retrace his son’s steps from that mysterious night.
In presenting the events from different perspectives, including that of Justin (Austin Abrams), a drug addict interested in cashing in on the reward money associated with finding the kids, Weapons captures how easily fear can cause one to see things through a rather narrow lens. As each individual deals with their own downward spiral, they make assumptions about others, some that come at a great cost, without any facts to back their claims.
The lesson of never judging a book by its cover hits home when the film spends time on how Alex is dealing with everything.
Showing how blindly pointing fingers in one direction can cause a person to fail to see the puppet master pulling the strings behind them, Weapons offers a haunting examination of little control one has when it comes to loss. A fact that becomes evident when the mysterious Gladys (Amy Madigan, in a scene-stealing turn) enters the picture. Cregger’s film understands that one of the most devastating aspects of losing someone close to you is the fact that it is often out of one’s hands. The sense of helplessness can be just as damaging as the grief and anger that caused it.
Filling his film with jump out of your seat scares and plenty of humour, Cregger constructs a work that entertains even when it appears to be wandering aimlessly at times. The shifting perspectives and tones, while engaging to behold, do not always allow for his puzzle pieces to fit nicely. Even his characters occasionally seemed baffled by some of the nightmarish things they encounter. The explicative “What the f***”, which the characters proclaim often, becomes both a running gag and an accurate portrayal of the wild turns the film takes.
The sharp turns occasionally expose some of the loose strands in the plot’s stitching, but that does little to take away from the overall joy that the film is to experience. Weapons may take inspiration from other works, ranging from Magnolia to Point Break to Grimm fairy tales to even the director’s own 2022 film Barbarian, Cregger manages to make it all feel fresh and exhilarating. Genuinely chilling, darkly funny, and at times heartbreaking, Weapons is an immensely enjoyable work that one does not easily forget. The film cements Cregger as a unique voice in horror and cinema in general.
