‘Weapons’ is this summer’s craziest surprise

Zach Cregger’s horror movie is a scary, funny rush

Sometimes the best films result in the worst reviews. Weapons could be that case. It’s not that I don’t have a lot of thoughts about Zach Cregger’s sophomore film. But the best endorsement I can give is that you should just close this review, get off the couch and go see it for yourself.

That was much the same reaction I had to Cregger’s first film, Barbarian, a genre-switching surprise about a mix up at a Detroit Airbrnb. Warriors continues Cregger’s tradition of delivering horror movies that don’t reveal their true designs until every last piece has clicked into place, and it’s even more assured, scary and fun than Barbarian, cementing the director as a vital new voice in horror cinema.

To discuss Weapons in too much detail would ruin the surprise. While I don’t think spoilers usually ruin a movie, in this case, I’d say the experience will be much better if you can go in as cold as possible. Also, if you can see it soon, with a packed crowd, you’ll do yourself a big favor. This movie flat-out plays with an audience ready to gasp, scream, cheer and laugh.

What I will say is that Weapons is a dark modern fairy tale that begins with a delicious hook: One night, in a typical American suburb, 27 young kids – all from the same elementary school class – got out of bed at 2:17 a.m., ran down the street and disappeared. The film picks up a month later to find the community picking up the pieces.

Cregger uses a fractured chronology, structuring each chapter with a focus on another person in the town impacted by the disappearance. There’s the teacher of the class (Julia Garner) who’s the target of the town’s outrage and suspicion and has turned to alcohol to cope. There’s the grieving father (Josh Brolin) obsessed with the Ring doorbell footage that shows his son running into the night, arms outstretched as if he’s playing airplane. There’s the one kid in the class who didn’t disappear, the school principal (Stephen Wong) trying to hold everyone together, and the hapless police officer (Alden Ehrenreich) on the cusp of losing his sobriety, his marriage and his job.

I’ve seen several reviews mention Weapons as a horror version of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. While I think that might be a wee bit of overpraise, it’s not totally out of the arena. Cregger’s screenplay is interested in how people grieve and cope, the responsibility a community holds to one another, and the ways that trauma and abuse can be used to weaponize others. Many of the horror elements that weave throughout the piece – and become overt in the film’s final act – could easily be removed and this could be a drama about how a town responds to any horrific tragedy (there are hints throughout that this might be a movie about gun violence, although I don’t know that the metaphor wholly holds together).

Despite its nods to fairy tales and urban legends, what keeps Weapons intriguing is its very human focus, brought to life by very strong actors doing good work. Garner and Brolin, in particular, are really good as two people who are at odds with each other and who are circling drains of obsession and addiction because of this loss. Ehrenreich is also great as a man with a propensity for screwing things up, and I really like Wong’s good-heartedness as a principal who just wants to do right by everyone. Of course, Amy Madigan gives the film’s best performance, but it’s best that I leave you to discover what she’s up to.

I think that, much like the recent Eddington, Cregger’s film brings up a lot of problems without fully tying them together. The themes and psychology are a bit muddled, particularly when the truth of the situation is finally revealed. But there’s nothing wrong with bringing up a society’s problems instead of trying to force an answer. And it doesn’t really hurt things too much when a film is this entertaining. As with Barbarian, Cregger is a master of tone and of audience manipulation. Yes, it’s scary – as with his previous film, Cregger is intrigued with what lurks in basements and around dark corners. He isn’t embarrassed to use a jump scare but doesn’t depend on them; people’s herky-jerky movements, horrific attacks in broad daylight, everyday objects given unsettling undertones – they’re all weapons (sorry) in Cregger’s arsenal to get under viewers’ skin.

But Cregger also knows when to pull the throttle back and let the drama and emotion play out without any scares to invest in the characters who navigate the horrors. Brolin’s search for his child is truly moving, and Garner captures her character’s isolation well. But then, just when you think you have a bead on the movie, Cregger switches gears again. The film’s final act is unhinged, willing to go to very weird places with its reveals, ramp up the horror and gore, and deliver a final chase sequence that is by turns thrilling, cathartic and absolutely hilarious – all by design. It’s a hell of a ride.

Weapons is a late-summer delight, a movie in which I truly had no idea what to expect from scene to scene. It’s scary, funny and thrilling and, next to Sinners, is one of the year’s best horror movies.