Weapons

Since it took me so long to get around to writing this review, I’m officially talking about an Oscar-winning movie! Good thing I was always going to give this one a thumbs up, or I’d look SUPER dumb right about now.

Taking place after the overnight disappearance of every child living in the small town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, Weapons follows a handful of the town’s residents as they attempt to get to the bottom of something that can’t easily be explained. Breaking the narrative into bite-sized chunks that each focuses on a different character tangled up in this terrifying situation — including local elementary school teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), determined police officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich), homeless burglar James (Austin Abrams), and Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), a frustrated father of one of the town’s missing children — it isn’t long before their respective paths start to cross, dragging each deeper into the mystery of what happened that night. Making matters worse and decidedly more… weird, Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) soon arrives in town, a relative of Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), the only boy who didn’t go missing. Bringing with her an unsettling energy that the residents of Maybrook can’t put their finger on, it soon becomes apparent that Gladys’ arrival may not be a coincidence, especially when even more odd things begin to happen around town.

The latest film from writer/director Zach Cregger, Weapons is a horror-adjacent tale that has a lot more going for it than its genre label lets on. Using his already proven directorial skills to draw out the right amount of tension and suspense in a scene as well as his effectiveness in making audiences squirm whenever something really nasty and bloody comes along, Cregger remixes what it means to be a horror movie in a fresh new way by adding equal amounts of character-driven drama and unexpected laughs, making Weapons a unique experience that few movies in its genre get right.

Expertly swinging between being genuinely unnerving and laugh-out-loud funny (depending on what the script and its characters are doing at the moment), I think the biggest compliment I can give Weapons is simple: it’s a scary, fun ride that proves original filmmaking isn’t dead, you just have to have an idea and a vision worth making. Easier said than done, I know, but with the benefit of having a larger budget than most horror films, Weapons uses it well by not only looking good but sounding great as well. But the filmmaking isn’t the only part of the movie that sets a high bar, as the entire cast’s performances, Brolin and the now Oscar-winning Madigan, especially, sell this wild idea in ways that would have surely failed had anyone of lesser talent handled it — or written it.

By structuring the plot “episodically” rather than in the usual linear fashion, Cregger can layer in the scares just as much as the story’s twists and turns, giving the movie a refreshing pace that almost feels like a condensed season of a television show complete with cliffhangers and slow burn reveals seeded all the way back in “part one” of the movie. Then, after playing with audience’s expectations for most of the runtime, Cregger satisfies all the sadists who need their blood and gore quota filled for a film like this (i.e. me) by unleashing a finale that can only be described as utterly hilarious in its brutality, making Weapons a must see for anyone looking for that coveted “elevated” horror experience marketing teams are so keen on pushing.

For as awesome as most of this movie was, I still have a few nitpicks that I have to complain about. Although I highly appreciated what Cregger did with the script, I did think that some of its elements, namely those coming towards the later parts of the film, weren’t as fully fleshed out or fit into the overarching narrative in a satisfying way, leading me to believe that this movie’s already beefy runtime could have used a couple extra minutes to bring these ideas more in line with the rest of Weapons’ impeccably written script.

It’s great to see studios take a chance on a movie like Weapons, especially after it went on to find huge success at the box office and with critics and fans alike, making me curious to see what Cregger does in the future, his upcoming Resident Evil film already making me unrealistically excited for a decent adaptation of a video game franchise that deserves better. Whether you like traditional horror movies or are more interested in the slow creeping terror of something more deliberate, Weapons has enough of both to satisfy anyone looking for a scary good experience.