Directed By Zach Cregger

Starring – Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich

The Plot – 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.

Rated R for strong bloody violence and grisly images, adult language throughout, some sexual content and drug use.

Weapons | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

On the benefit of some effectively unnerving marketing trailers that drove speculation about the movie’s many dark and ominous realities, Cregger has conjured up a sensationally stirring sophomore effort to 2022’s “Barbarian”, with a lot of the same integral ingredients to this movie’s foundation that made its predecessor a terrifying twist behind every corner. Most obvious between them is a non-linear structure to the movie’s storytelling, this time with divided chapters covering a respective character within the ensemble that scatters many clues and advantageous perspectives to the movie’s unraveling mystery. This is an aspect that won’t be for everyone, especially considering it requires enough patience to see it through to a more than satisfying climax, during the movie’s third act, but I found the framing device to not only simultaneously drive the urgencies and uncertainties of every character, typically ending each chapter on a suspenseful note of confrontation, but also the devilish details of how each of these respective arcs meet to the middle of the film’s gigantic discovery, surprisingly keeping me faithfully endeared to the movie’s many dimensions, featuring the kind of naturalistic lived-in dialogue and interactions between characters that makes this location feel like a character of its own within the film. Also similar to “Barbarian”, Cregger implements a firm element of awkward humor that gives these sequences of thick tension a responsive levity that cools off the audience in all of the right ways. This is a very sensitive art because if done improperly, comedy can completely obscure the mystique that drives investment to the storytelling, but as a former member of TV’s “The Whitest Kids You Know”, Cregger knows how to push the proverbial element far enough without ruining the surrounding integrity of the scene, in turn tapping into the maniacal mayhem of the movie’s developing narrative that becomes so batshit bonkers by the third act that you can’t help but laugh at the magnitude of the disparaging situation that this small town finds themselves in. Cregger’s best moments as a director are ultimately determined not by his riveting tension throughout some unbridled payoffs involving top notch practical effects of bodily devastation, but rather those intentionally lingering persistence with the lens that constantly draws audience attention to subdued imagery that wouldn’t feel as valuable to other contemporary horror movies. Such an example pertains to the film’s many shots of a dark entryway that would serve as an establishing shot in other movies, but here revels in the details of the darkness that tease and taunt audience interpretation, and considering Cregger and fellow iconic cinematographer, Larkin Seiple, command captivity with an abundance of varying lenses and placements, in order to articulate varying dimensions to each sequence’s atmospheric integrity, the film serves as a virtual showcase for Cregger’s experienced improvements in just three years since his previous effort, proving him a force to be reckoned with among the many fresh faces of horror that have reinvigorated my single favorite genre of film. In reverting back to the storytelling, for just a second, the movie’s mystery does bring with it not only several examples of community turned upside down, in uncovering the worse in people while prematurely blaming Garner’s teacher character for the seventeen child disappearances, but also appraises intrigue and speculation all the way to the film’s big reveal, which feels like it finally takes this film to the maniacal territory that was hyped by social media. While some improper choices to dream sequences and scattered details during the opening act did telegraph certain aspects about the reveal before the story has a chance to, it’s the who and how that ultimately serve as the story’s biggest contributors to the movie’s appeal in paying off the mystery accordingly, with the final chapter of the aforementioned episodic framing used to uncover what the audience could’ve never possibly imagined, at least in total, and while there are no shortage of memorable instances in the movie’s favor, my favorite is undoubtedly the resolution at the movie’s tail end, with a gauntlet of gore that matches 1986’s “Day of the Dead” in one particular familiarity. The film is also scored impeccably by Cregger, as well as Hays and Ryan Holladay, who instrumentally channel so much emotional complexity and creative dexterity to scoring sequences that are simultaneously dreadful and fun. While it’s becoming a weekly right of passage on this page to label something as my favorite score of the year, I will say it once more with the Holladay’s work here, as not only does no two compositions used in the film sound even remotely similar in both assorted instruments and tempo’s, but they also channel new wave and esoteric waters while incorporating voices and rhythmic hymns, helping to maintain the aforementioned ominousness that makes these people feel condemned by a sinister force that has wrecked and ravaged their once peaceful community. Last but certainly not least, the film is performed exceptionally by everyone involved, however it’s surprisingly Amy Madigan and Cary Christopher who make the most of their minimized time, with the former eliciting her best work in a career of memorable roles that include “Field of Dreams”, “Uncle Buck”, and “Streets of Fire”, to name a few. Madigan’s work can be effortlessly compared to Nicolas Cage’s in last year’s “LongLegs”, but not quite for the scenery-chewing delivery that occasionally felt distracting, but rather by the gravitating allure of his presence that dominated every scene or sequence that involved him. Madigan rides the same wavelengths with fearless deliveries and franticness that convey a side to her emotional registry that I didn’t before think possible, cementing one of those unforgettable roles that will not only come to define her career, but also one that the movie wouldn’t be half as good as it is without her.

NEGATIVES

While I got a lot of enjoyment and entertainment out of “Weapons”, I’m left with this inescapable feeling of disappointment to my expectations, especially considering this was my most anticipated movie of the summer. A lot of the reasons for this starts with material, that, even with a two hour runtime at its disposal, still isn’t enough time to vividly explain the motivations of the antagonist, nor seamlessly wrap up every single measure of the movie’s many conflicts, which does make this feel a bit unfinished by the movie’s abruptly unsatisfying closing shot. I take great pride in being someone who doesn’t need complete finality in order to be satisfied by a film, but here I mentally receive more lasting questions to the movie’s integrity the longer that I think about it, and it’s one of those many examples where I feel like if “Weapons” was a television series rather than a feature length movie, then we would’ve gotten more extensive depth to these characters than an individualized framing device can capably conjure, especially considering the film’s many chapters doesn’t always utilize timing balance in ways that some of these characters rightfully deserved. As previously conveyed, I wholeheartedly understand why Cregger took a non-linear approach to the storytelling, and I do truly feel that it works to the movie’s favor more than it hinders it, however there are some one-note subplots within the narrative that receive far too much time than they rightfully deserve, while others don’t come close to even scratching the surface. One of the latter instances is in Josh Brolin’s Archer, a mentally unraveling parent struggling without knowing where his son is at, or even if he’s alive, and while we’ve seen the grieving parent angle a variety of times in these kind of movies (Most notably Hugh Jackman in “Prisoners”), Brolin’s tenderness is the kind of earnestness that unfortunately gets lost in the shuffle within this movie’s many characters, for what should be a moral compass of the lives of parents that are essentially lost with their missing kids, yet only receiving around ten minutes of the movie’s primary focus. Finally, and perhaps alongside those previous unanswered questions, the movie requires a bit more of a lack of logic than I was initially expecting, and not referring to just someone or something’s ability to make seventeen children leave their homes in the middle of the night. My logic lapses refer more to certain questions within the investigation and conflicts that become glaring the longer they’re unaddressed, and considering a lot of this involves spoilers that I’m not willing to talk about, I will instead focus on the use of surveillance cameras in household quarters that are used to show the children running off at 2:17 AM. When you use the parents cameras as a starting point, you can determine which direction the children ran, and from there you can look into the next block over to see if anyone else had cameras and spotted them running to a certain direction. If you continue to do this, you will eventually create a distinguished direction, and from there you can narrow down the possibilities of their destination. My question is did the cops pursue this possibility, and if so could the movie have illustrated this point further to put to bed the speculation of a restless audience? Believe me when I say this is far from the only logic lapse of the entire movie, but you’re just forced to go along with it, to get where the story is intended to go, and considering Cregger’s logic lapses were an unfortunate aspect of its debut film, it feels like he isn’t taking enough time on the scripts to iron out some of the more defining details that could draw audiences in all the more accordingly.

OVERALL
“Weapons” doesn’t quite completely live up to the monumental expectations attained from its cleverly compelling marketing, but it does supplant another maniacally macabre engagement for Cregger, who lives and thrives on the ambiguities of a mystery, as well as the things here that quite literally go bump in the night. While the film is plagued by unaddressed logic, incomplete resolutions, and an imbalance of character focus, the elevated tension and stellar filmmaking within a weird and wild good time excels at showcasing the distinct uniqueness that Cregger brings to an ever-growing genre of prominent filmmakers, supplanting an inferior successor to his daring debut, but one that you should still embrace eagerly with your arms wide open.

My Grade: 7.8 or B-