Weapons: A slick, sinister fairy tale for the modern age that goes beyond expectations

Weapons is one of those movies that is extremely difficult to discuss, because you don’t want to ruin a single one of the horror mystery’s many surprises. 

Especially since the film’s marketing has actually managed to stay hush-hush about what is really going on. 

It’s safe to say, though, that writer-director Zach Cregger has returned to the same techniques and tricks that he used to make Airbnb cautionary tale Barbarian, and put them to more polished use in Weapons.

Shifting between multiple characters’ perspectives, and unfurling in a non-linear manner, Weapons opens with a child’s narration that sets the film up as true crime meets dark modern fairy tale. 

One night in a typical Midwestern town, at exactly 2.17am, all the children (barring one) from the same elementary school class exit their homes and vanish into the darkness. 

That’s the set-up. 

Weapons primarily takes place one month after the tragedy, with the children’s teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) turned into a pariah by the community, and Josh Brolin’s inconsolable father Archer Graff obsessed with the case. Both want answers, and their private investigations point to something deeply disturbing. Unbelievable even.

If you had to compare Weapons to any other film, its closest cinematic relative is probably last year’s Longlegs, which married a serial killer tale with the supernatural. Weapons is as atmospheric and uncomfortable as the Nicolas Cage and Osgood Perkins collaboration, but considerably less pretentious. 

Weapons may be peppered with long unbroken takes, shot over characters’ shoulders to entrench viewers in their shoes, and it uses silence rather than shrieking violins to enhance its jump scares, but it moves along at a swift, consistent pace. 

Mostly, though, the film is made accessible by its cast of credibly flawed characters with good intentions. 

These flesh and blood figures, which also include Alden Ehrenreich’s troubled beat cop, Benedict Wong’s placating principal, and Austin Abrams’s homeless drug addict, make mistakes but they’re understandable. 

Nobody is brain-achingly stupid, and as their individual stories are added to the narrative mix, sometimes layering, sometimes entwining, the effect is like gradually completing a picture within a children’s colouring-in book — creating a richer viewing experience that even manages to include a few welcome laughs.

Weapons can simply be enjoyed as a scary movie, but like the best horror, it actually has something to say about our sociopolitical reality. 

Cregger has spoken publicly about how parts of the film reflect the experience of children living with alcoholic parents. Aside from that, though, Weapons can be interpreted as offering a commentary on the scapegoating of classroom influence when it’s typically home where the real danger and corruption lies. 

On that note, Weapons gives the world a new horror icon, and the expansion of a sub-genre that the likes of Barbarian, X and IT in one memorable scene have helped to stoke in recent years. 

Speaking of Stephen King, as Weapons takes its narrative hairpin turns, and ends up in completely unexpected territory, you can certainly identify some of the author’s influence, as a small town refuses to swallow what is really going on. 

The same goes for Roald Dahl’s darkest children’s tales, but taken to a grisly R-rated extreme. 

The only real failing of Weapons is that its ending falls flat. 

Following a frenzied climax, stuffed with nightmare imagery, the film just kind of ends. Even that would have been fine, but the return of the child’s voiceover, to bookend the narration, adds details that make ambiguous interpretation impossible, and therefore less satisfying. Still, up to this point, Weapons offers something enjoyably unpredictable and engrossing, and you couldn’t wish for anything more from its genre. DM

Having debuted in the number one spot at the American box office — an unusual achievement for a horror film — it’s arguably best to see Weapons sooner rather than later to avoid casual spoilers. The film was released in South Africa on 8 August.

This story was first published by PFangirl.