Weapons Film Review: Enticing Horror Mystery

After setting up an enticing premise, Weapons constructs a complex web of flawed yet sympathetic characters to unravel its horror mystery.

From Zach Cregger, director of 2022’s Barbarian, this film opens with an instantly intriguing premise: all the kids from a single elementary school class leave their homes at the exact same time in the middle of the night, and they run off never to return. 

The kids’ teacher, Mrs. Gandy (Julia Garner, The Fantastic Four: First Steps) faces a whirlwind of backlash and accusations from an angry town, including Archer, one of the missing kids’ fathers (Josh Brolin, Dune: Part Two). She has sympathy from school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong, Doctor Strange) and her cop ex-boyfriend Paul (Alden Ehrenreich, Oppenheimer), but her desperation to solve this mystery leads her to recklessly pry into the life of Alex (Cary Christopher), the one child from her class who did not run off and go missing. 

This is already quite a lot to work with, but Weapons takes it even further by telling its story in nonlinear fashion, separating the plot into chapters focusing on each character’s point of view. For how simple the story ends up being under the surface, the structure keeps the momentum going as we circle the drain to learn what’s actually going on. We get to hone in on one major character at a time to really see what makes them tick, highlighting the many perspectives that would come from a crisis like this. Weapons doesn’t shy away from everyone’s harsh, jagged edges, but it ensures we sympathize with where those edges come from. 

Gandy seems clearly innocent when it comes to the disappearances, but her returning alcoholism and inability to calmly handle the blowback lead her to cause many of her own problems. Archer is wrong to lash out at her, but you see how the pain of losing his kid leads him to think so irrationally. Paul is trying to do the right thing, but his role as a cop brings about other issues that pile on top of one another. I would honestly call Weapons more thriller than horror, because most of it is focused on the tension of all these storylines clashing, and what they say about how we treat others in the wake of inconclusive tragedy.

In fact, a majority of the film’s efforts to scare you largely boil down to predictable, obnoxious, often pointless jump-scares. Have you seen scary movies with slow, quiet buildups to a telegraphed loud noise that doesn’t ultimately matter, including a cool-looking but irrelevant dream sequence? Then you’ve seen the scares in Weapons. And like in Barbarian, a lot of the “horror” has an underlying tinge of humor and fun, even though nothing about the situation makes me want to laugh. This generally stops me from loving Cregger’s movies in general. I don’t get the satisfaction of being properly scared, but I also don’t find them funny.

I’ve yet to mention James (Austin Abrams, Do Revenge), a homeless drug addict whom Paul pursues during his quest for the truth. He technically affects the plot, but not in ways that probably couldn’t have just been written around, which would have streamlined things and given us even more time to flesh out what the far more interesting people are experiencing. This kind of excess pops up in a few other places. Weapons juggles a lot of balls, but while none of those balls hit the floor, they don’t all add a lot to the act. Everything you see appears to matter in the moment, but not so much when you’re looking back.

Once we finally learn what happened and why, that’s when Weapons really excels. Don’t get me wrong; the actual answer is nothing mind-blowing, especially compared to the buildup. I remember thinking, “Oh, okay. That’s within the realm of what I figured.” But the exploration of how it all works really ups the creepiness by putting you in the shoes of the film’s most sympathetic, pivotal, yet powerless character (even if their performance doesn’t do many favors). It all leads to an ending with the exact right type of bloody catharsis you’ve been waiting for, followed by an almost pyrrhic final note that’s far less clean and happy than what a lot of movies would do.

The hype surrounding Weapons, especially around its release, has built it up as one of the best films of the year, shrouding it in mystique that few films can hope to live up to. But while I certainly think it’s good, I obviously have enough issues with Weapons to not fully agree with that hype. Which is to say, I definitely recommend it as a fun horror/thriller/mystery, especially around Halloween. But I’d advise not expecting the masterpiece that some are touting it to be. That way, at worst, you’ll likely enjoy the movie without being disappointed. At best, it’ll exceed your lowered expectations and you will fall head-over-heels. Either way, it’s a win.

Weapons is now available to watch on digital and on demand.