“Weapons” Is A Mystery With Human Flaws At Its Core

“Weapons,” Zach Cregger’s sophomore effort, absolutely lives up to the hype surrounding it — but not for the reasons you might think. I’ve heard some people describe it as the scariest thing they’ve ever seen, and I certainly wouldn’t go that far. While “Weapons” is largely advertised as a horror film, I would classify it as 60% thriller, 20% horror and 20% comedy — and it does all of those things well.

The basic premise involves a grade-school class of children, all of whom disappear from their homes in early hours of the morning and are not seen again. The only remaining members of the class are the teacher and one solitary student. The audience is told the story through several lenses including that of the teacher, the principal, a police officer, a man addicted to drugs, the parent of a missing student, and the remaining student. With each new perspective, more of the mystery is unveiled. Heavily inspired by Stephen King, the story is a classic “tragedy befalls small-town America” narrative, with children being at the center of the disquiet.

I wouldn’t describe “Weapons” as particularly scary throughout; though it does have some scary moments, fear isn’t the most compelling aspect of the story. Rather, “Weapons” is engaging because of its excellent use of suspense and slow revelation, and its textured characters and world-building. The audience is kept guessing the entire time, and it’s not particularly predictable in terms of plot. I had some suspicions about what the twist might be, and the answer was adjacent to what I had thought, but the final reveal did take me by surprise. I was also surprised at who survived the situation and who died. It’s a horror film so, of course, you expect some people to die, but the choice of survivors was interesting.

“Weapons” is also surprisingly funny and satisfying at times through its sheer absurdity. Typically, I dislike watching films with large audiences (there’s always someone chewing too loudly or scrolling on their phone the whole time), but this was a rare exception where watching with an audience was great fun. By the end, the theater was positively cheering for much needed catharsis, which was delivered in spades.

When “Weapons” has its scary moments, it’s deeply unsettling rather than pure slasher drivel. One scene involving scissors will haunt my dreams for a while, and the live audience had a visceral reaction to it. The film does have a couple of cheap slasher moments that felt gratuitous — though I suppose, if you like that sort of thing, it will scratch your Michael Myers itch. If you don’t, you can just look away as I did — these moments are rare.

“Weapons” is played rather straight. There were no deep metaphors or social commentary that I could discern. The evil behind the children’s disappearance is primal, and while the mechanisms behind that evil are fully fleshed out (perhaps too much), the motivations, source, and backstory behind that evil are left a mystery. The only lesson I might be able to parse from the story is that grief and misfortune can sometimes be random — we might look for someone to blame, or a reason behind it all, but life can be cruelly arbitrary at times and not leave us with any real closure or answers.

That doesn’t seem to be the main thrust of the story, however; what makes “Weapons” so rich is its textured world-building, rather than any metaphor or motif. Each perspective shift adds a layer of depth to the world; all of the characters (arguably with the exception of the principal) are flawed people, some more sympathetic than others, but very human and real — people you may have met in your own life.

Even characters like the parents of the remaining child, who get hardly any screen time, are given depth. That’s what makes it a good horror film: Viewers are invested and feel something when characters die or experience misfortune, unlike many shoddy films of the slasher genre where people whose names you forgot drop like flies, with zero emotional impact.

“Weapons” is an impressive effort from Zach Cregger, who also produced the humorous yet unsettling “Companion,” which was released in January. He has been added to my pantheon of modern horror directors with something compelling and intelligent to say, alongside Ari Aster and Jordan Peele. This film is well worth watching with friends or with a weekend crowd.