Weapons (2025)
In the dead of night at 2:17 a.m. on a weekday, 17 children woke up and inexplicably ran out of their houses and disappeared into the darkness. All of these third graders were in the same classroom, taught by Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), and only one child from that class, Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), hasn't vanished. That is the intriguing premise that writer/director Zach Cregger is following-up to his 2022 memorable horror fest Barbarian. If Barbarian is Cregger's Reservoir Dogs, then Weapons is his Pulp Fiction.
Weapons is not an easy film to
review because to say more about the plot would ruin the film's mysteries. Just
know that Weapons is a damn near brilliant horror mystery with
supernatural overtones.
Cregger uses a nonlinear narrative
approach to his story, giving us pieces of the puzzle little by little. The
film's characters aren't introduced all at once, but rather one at a time, as
if each character has their own chapter in a book. First, we meet teacher
Justine, who is branded a witch by many of the townspeople because the missing
children were her students—so she must have something to do with their
disappearance, right? The stress of the situation causes Justine's drinking
problem to escalate.
After following Justine's story for a
bit, the movie backs up, and we follow Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the father
of one of the missing kids. We are also introduced to a troubled cop (Alden
Ehrenreich), a homeless junkie (Austin Abrams), the school's principal
(Benedict Wong), and young Alex, as well as his Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan in a
tour de force performance). Eventually, all these characters and their stories
will intersect.
While there are a couple of jump
scares, Weapons doesn't rely on them, rather a chilly and haunting
atmosphere that will probably keep you up at night.
