Weapons, directed by Zach Cregger, is a slow-burning horror mystery about 17 third-grade students who mysteriously vanish from their Pennsylvania town one night, leaving only one survivor, shy Alex. The disappearance sparks fear, suspicion, and blame within the community, especially toward teacher Justine Gandy
A still from Weapons
Film: Weapons
Cast: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan.
Director: Zach Cregger
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 128 min
‘Weapons’ is a fairly soporific horror mystery about a group of 17 elementary school classmates from a stable American community, who just up and vanish without a trace. Writer-director Zach Cregger explores the fear and anger, mostly directed at the teachers and the lone survivor, that consume the community of a Pennsylvania town called Maybrook after the incident.
The movie begins at 2:17 a.m. on a school night, when 17 children get out of bed, open their front doors, run out into the night, and vanish into the blue. They are all students in Justine Gandy’s third-grade class, of which only shy boy Alex is the bewildered lone survivor now. Don’t know why he was spared and the town’s angry parents are just as bewildered about that. In the painful aftermath, parents look for answers, consolation and someone to blame. The mass disappearance, in fact, turns the mild-mannered parents into an angry mob. Hot-tempered Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), whose son Matt has gone missing, stands up at a school meeting and implicates Justine (Julia Garner), demanding to know what the teacher did to their kids. That charge leads to a flurry of fears and phobias getting exposed. Are the school personnel and policies brainwashing their kids?
Cregger divides the film into six chapters, focusing on six people, and telling it in their perspective. Each story rewinds scenes repeatedly in a new perspective with new insights. Beginning with the teacher Justine, then Archer, followed by a cop(Alden Ehrenreich), the school administrator (Benedict Wong) and two others. As each point of view is represented, the pieces begin to fit together. We see glimpses of a clownish face and much later the arrival of the repulsive aunt Gladys.
For most of its runtime, the movie plays grimly, making you wonder about the ambiguity and where it is going. But once Gladys comes on the scene, the writing becomes clearer. Larkin Seiple’s steady camerawork is loaded with visuals that are textured and moving. The practical effects make it also more compelling. The background score reverberates strongly enough to creep you from the inside. The violence begins to escalate towards the end. That’s when we realise the significance of the title. But that’s also when this experience starts becoming wobbly. Cregger’s grotesque comedy makes the terror aspects look lame towards the end.
Hinting at school violence and other scary possibilities, the film creates a mood that leaves you fractious and edgy. There’s misery and foreboding shadowing the narrative. Everyone is haunted by the tragedy and deals with it in their own individual ways. Some of which looks suspicious and becomes cause for blame…
Cregger’s characters are believable because they are flawed. Their response to the crisis is dependent on where they are coming from and that makes it plausible. For most of its runtime Weapons generates a brooding intensity that translates into scary. But once Cregger’s shows his hand, the ominousness dwindles down to something strange.
Framed like a true story, this film is reminiscent of Stephen King’s work but the ending belies that association. The swerve into witch-horror doesn’t sit well though. It comes out of nowhere and feels like a forced gambit without supportive mythology boosting it.
An anonymous young narrator tells us, “The police and the top people in this town … were not able to solve it.” At the end there’s a lot that remains unresolved…so we garner that there’s possibly a sequel in the offing. Cregger’s ‘Weapons’ for a large part of its runtime is a compelling watch. The visuals are sensational and Cregger’s creates enough mood to creep you out for a large part of this experience.
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