Zach Cregger has shown, in both Barbarian (2022) and now Weapons, that he likes his horror tales to have a humorous front-facing visage. But all the dark secrets are tucked away in the back of the house, or perhaps even in the basement. His stories evoke fear because the thing there is to be feared isn’t so visible or tangible; it’s out of reach, hiding in dark corners and unexplored rooms. In Barbarian, this horror manifests itself in a telling of the sins of the past. In Weapons, something more abstract is going on, but the idea persists that this suffering is brought upon by a darkness that has been unaddressed and allowed to fester. The festivities kick off with the premise most everyone has heard by now: one night at 2:17 a.m., 17 students from the same classroom get out of bed, walk out of their front doors, and simultaneously Naruto-run into the night.
The classroom in question is that of newly hired teacher Justine Gandy (Julie Garner), herself and her student Alex (Cary Christopher) now alleged to be the only surviving members of the classroom. Why did they all dart off into the night, and why didn’t Alex? The answers to that take a while to become available, but you can begin to piece together the connections almost immediately. Weapons is full of metaphors, from school shootings to alcoholism to opioids and hard drugs. What the film has to say about these things isn’t necessarily aiming to be particularly illuminating – what more could you say other than these experiences are emotionally debilitating? Rather, the movie uses these signifiers as plot devices, to illustrate the dread of the narrative, but the true learning is in how the characters respond to these predicaments. For Justine, initially, that means to drink and indulge in old flames, a concoction of self-destruction necessitated by grief.
For Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), whose little boy is still out there somewhere, his grief turns into an obsession to figure out how and why these kids would leave their homes in such a mysterious way. He blames Justine for what happened, but due to coincidence not concrete evidence. The town is sent into a tailspin, but they must have the worst investigators in the country on the police force; other than Archer and Justine, no one seems to come forward with any useful clues that would help answer the mystery. We don’t get much of any insight into the police’s lackadaisical search, which is perplexing because, without spoiling too much, there are some pretty glaring questions and clues that you could come up with based on the accounts of that night. The takeaway being – if someone you love goes missing in this town, you should alert the authorities in the next town over.
Beyond just the enticing premise, what’s enthralling about Weapons is how Cregger spaces out the scares along with his ability to move the film along with efficient exposition and visual storytelling. Some of these skills can be seen in simple moments, such as the opening when the camera itself doesn’t reveal that Alex is the only student left in the classroom until that fact is acknowledged in the narration as well. In the film’s opening moments, Justine’s face is largely concealed until Cregger is ready to lend the narrative over to her POV, offering the first close-up of the lead as she’s being berated in a heated school meeting. The opening narration, done by an unseen kid, is just innocent-sounding enough to invite empathy, while providing all the details the audience needs and effectively conveying the sinister happenings under the surface of the child’s words, a contrast of the goodness in children and the evils the narrator is forced to allude to. On the other hand, the film is very obvious in some of its intentions, manifesting itself in an on-the-nose visual reference that connects the students’ disappearance with the real-life terror of mass shootings – a reference that probably wasn’t necessary, as the more subtle nature of the narrative had already connected those dots.
The film shares similarities with Prisoners (2013) in terms of its dilemma of having ordinary citizens tasked with solving a complex mystery regarding the disappearance of children. But structurally, Cregger is taking some inspiration from Magnolia (1999), utilizing chapters and a multitude of perspectives to distill the experience of this small town. Not all of these chapters are hits – the sections from the POV of Justine’s cop ex, Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), and a junkie named James (Austin Abrams) not only have us following less interesting characters, but they also spend a lot of time covering the same ground and plot details. It doesn’t help that you could take these characters out of the movie entirely, and I don’t think it would change much about the film’s conclusion.
Benedict Wong plays a concerned principal tasked with maintaining order in his academic orbit amidst this chaotic tragedy. Cregger settles the character into a same-sex relationship, one that is riddled with so many little jokes and sight gags, you wonder what the filmmaker really thinks of this type of couple. By the time we get to them picking out Fruity Pebbles in the grocery store, you begin to wonder if we’re being pranked and if the writing for this couple is too one-note and could have benefited from more sophisticated depictions. Principal Marcus’ main shtick in general, when he’s not answering the issues of Justine or other concerned parents, seems to be how much he and his spouse eat for some reason. They seem to always be picking up chips and cookies and shit, and later we see them getting ready to devour a platter of hot dogs with veggies and ranch. This platter is gargantuan – it’s just the two of them, but even for a family of four you would think “Eh, this might be a little much.”
Shallow caricatures aside, the screenplay’s more thought-provoking ideas can be found in how it perceives the vices of humanity. The film is called Weapons, and thematically that name is not only echoed within the instruments used for extreme violence, but how we as humans inflict self-pain with our poison of choice. Firearms, scissors, knives, needles, alcohol, drugs, they’re all potentially weapons depending on how they’re used. Cregger’s film is just as interested in the people who use these tools to harm others as it is in the people who harm themselves. It is thus no coincidence that the characters suffering from their own vices are primed to find themselves in the orbit of the central conflict, tragedy providing an unwelcome magnetism to the afflicted.
What’s interesting about the film’s world-building is how the fictional town of Maybrook, PA shares a kinship with the town of Derry in Stephen King’s novels. While Cregger has explicitly mentioned Magnolia, I can’t help but notice the either intentional or subconscious influence that King’s stories had on the movie. Both are towns full of dark secrets and boogeymen, and the children are as vulnerable as anyone to the dangers and monsters inherent within. I alluded earlier to the incompetence of the authorities in the film, a summation that the movie largely agrees with considering the narration informs us, in the past tense, that the town was embarrassed by their inability to solve this case. Perhaps the movie is contemplating how ineffective the attempts of some of our adults and institutions are at protecting children, and the film considers children to be at the center of pure innocence. Weapons centers itself around the adults that can overcome their follies to protect those that need it most, and the children who may sometimes have to protect themselves.
