Weapons
Starring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin and Cary Christopher
Rated MA15+
4/5
The third film from Barbarian writer-director Zach Creggor, Weapons is a chilling, cleverly-written horror film with some misjudged tone and a flawed middle.
One night, seventeen students, all from the same classroom, vanish without a trace.
As the town erupts in anger and paranoia, their teacher Justine (Julia Garner) and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the missing children, resolve to find them.
Garner is engrossing as Justine, a realistically-flawed protagonist who loves her students but is impulsive, obsessive and petty at times.
Brolin is a figure of steely, determined grief as Archer, and Cary Christopher delivers an astounding performance as Alex, Justine’s only remaining student.
Weapons is an enthralling slow-burn, establishing a disturbing mystery and a deepening aura of gloom and frustration for its harried victims.
Like a less procedural Longlegs, Weapons is full of subtle, nail-biting tension, and does an excellent job of developing the macabre rules at play.
Even when you learn the nefarious cause of the disappearances by the end of the second act, a deep despair is maintained through the awareness that the characters are ensnared in a cruel, cunning system, along with themes of growing up too fast and toxic family obligations.
The narrative has a clever overlapping, recursive structure, showing multiple perspectives on the same events, but the middle has two overly comedic, largely redundant vignettes involving a
cop and a junkie.
Weapons’ first act has an over-reliance on fake-out dream sequences, with two in a row at one point.
The ending is also both gut-wrenchingly terrifying and kinda goofy.
Some viewers will love it and some will hate it; I’m somewhere in the middle.
A great horror film marred by a distracted middle and some tonal issues, Weapons is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
