GENRE | Josh Brolin and Julia Garner Control 'Weapons'

"Today, none of her kids were there."

New Line Cinema

Sketch comedian turned Barbarian writer/director Zach Cregger sticks to the twisty horror genre by levelling up his sophomore solo feature, Weapons. Told in a series of seven interconnected chapters from different character viewpoints—imagine Prisoners meets Hereditary—the unnerving mystery of what happened to seventeen students from the same third-grade class, who all left their houses and disappeared at exactly 2:17am without a trace, is slowly revealed.

It stars Julia Garner as the distressed teacher whose class disappeared—save for a single student (Cary Christopher) key to the whole thing—with Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, and Benedict Wong as various townspeople connected to the mysterious vanishing in unknown ways. However, it's Amy Madigan's over-the-top, late character entrance as a haunting elderly presence in the third act that veers the film in a bold but wildly chaotic direction.

What's most satisfying about Weapons is its humour and earnest character reactions to the craziness of the plot developments. Despite the frenzied nightmare of a film, Cregger's sophisticated storytelling maximizes the shocking revelations, leading to an odd tale of weaponized control. However, his central mystery becomes so focused that not revealing everything that happened would feel disingenuous. Still, by doing so, the full explanation cannot be nearly as satisfying as the buildup.

Weapons is told as a supernatural myth of an urban legend, spread as a rumour. Cregger's cerebral filmmaking style has evolved with more resources and A-list talent, but he still has to explain too much. Ultimately, the child abduction film acts as an extended metaphor for the worry and grief parents face every day, manifested through frightening horror tension in its expression of contemporary suburban panic.


More | YVArcade / Exclaim / Indiewire / JoySauce