Weapons Review
A tense, mystery-box horror film that pulls you in; even if it can’t quite figure out where to leave you.
There’s a lot to like about Weapons. It’s a mystery-box horror with an intriguing plot that holds your attention for most of the film’s 128 minute runtime. The tone is tight, the performances are sharp (Benedict Wong’s wild eyes deserve a nomination alone), and it all feels like it’s building toward something big.
The events of the film are set into motion when, at exactly 2:17 a.m, seventeen third-graders, wake up and sprint out of their homes into the night,never to be seen again.
We then meet Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), the horrified teacher left with a nearly empty classroom. Throughout the next 2 hours, the perspective of the film pivots through several different characters; Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), a distraught father; Officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich), an emotionally conflicted cop; Principal Andrew Marcus (Benedict Wong); Jamie (Austin Abrams) a drug addled teen, and the sole surviving student, Alex (Cary Christopher).
The puzzle-like structure works well. Clues are dangled with care, tension builds steadily, and the direction stays just cryptic enough to keep you hooked without getting lost in the weeds.
But the risk of crafting a narrative in this way is that it raises expectations for a satisfying payoff; and in this case, for me, it did not. This may be more of a personal gripe than a genuine criticism; but the reliance on devilry and witchcraft to explain away questions raised in the story has always felt like a bit of a cop out to me. Granted, there are films that play into this supernatural theme very well, Talk to Me (2022) and Hereditary (2018) come to mind, but unfortunately I wouldn’t consider Weapons to be amongst them. The reveal at the beginning of the third act that this was your classic ‘possession-by-numbers’ horror film, felt a little underwhelming given the care and consideration that was given to the rest of the script.
Because of this the third-act resolution never landed quite right for me. The climatic scene, that I won’t spoil here, felt so totally jarring that it had people in the theatre laughing out loud; not exactly the reaction director Zach Cregger was hoping for I’m sure.
Still, there’s something admirable about this film; even with the stumble at the end.
