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After bursting onto the horror scene (in a Jordan Peele-esque pivot) with his solo directorial and screenwriting debut Barbarian in 2022, comedian-turned-horror maestro Zach Cregger has returned with his sophomore feature, Weapons. Infused with a singular blend of horror-comedy, Weapons (produced, written, and directed by Cregger) is a gripping, tonally dizzying film that’s as funny as it is frightening.
Starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, Weapons tells the story of a single tumultuous night in a small town reeling from the bizarre disappearance of 17 elementary school children, all of whom got out of their beds at the same time one night and walked out of the house. With the police and federal investigators unable to provide answers, the angry parents (led by Brolin) turn their ire towards Justine Grundy (Garner), the children’s teacher, and young Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), the only child from Ms. Grundy’s class who didn’t go missing.
Despite being warned by the school’s social principal (Benedict Wong) not to interact with Alex, Ms. Grundy’s desperation to uncover the truth sparks a chain reaction that devolves into a night of bloody chaos.
Told in anachronistic vignettes that follow each of the film’s principal characters, Weapons’ story structure wrings maximum tension from an already-potent premise. Jumping from character to character (often abandoning key players in life-or-death scenarios), Cregger weaponizes (no pun intended) the film’s structure to bolster what might otherwise be a cut-and-dry horror fairytale.
Jerking the audience from one character’s perspective to another just as danger reaches a boiling point, Cregger’s clever, jigsaw puzzle-esque script (and editor Joe Murphy’s deft hand) turns what might be an otherwise arduous 2hr 8 minute runtime into a deliciously eerie, unsettling, often desperate race to uncover the horrible truth beneath the surface of a seemingly mundane town.
From the eerie, spread-armed running posture of the missing children to the terrified, bulging eyes of a possessed Benedict Wong to Ryan and Hays Holladay’s shrill, anxiety-inducing score, Cregger is able to conjure nightmarish images from the mundane and instill an ever-present sense of dread that makes Weapons impossible to look away from.
At the same time, though, Cregger’s comedy chops peek through in the most seemingly inopportune moments, as they often did in Barbarian. Often coming on the heels of some of the film’s most potent scares, there’s a dry humor and simplistic, everyman wit to Weapons that acts as a necessary catharsis, counterbalancing the oppressively bleak reality of Alex’s existence.
But a script that ping-pongs as wildly in tone as Cregger’s does demands a cast equally at home in the worlds of horror as they are comedy, and Julia Garner anchors Weapons the diminutive Ms. Grundy, who has been driven to alcoholism and manic paranoia as a result of her students’ disappearance and her ostracization by the rest of the town. Though Grundy is frustratingly lost in key beats of the film’s finale, Garner brings a scrappy charm to Grundy that makes her otherwise poor decision-making understandable, if not endearing.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Josh Brolin’s strong-jawed Archer Gaff, who ends up being the unexpected emotional anchor of Weapons, despite spending the first hour of the film’s runtime spewing insults at and terrorizing Ms. Grundy. With his dry delivery and intimidating presence, Brolin makes an endearing odd couple opposite Garner, often delivering some of the film’s biggest laughs and memorable fight scenes.
As for the mystery at the heart of the film, Cregger is (somewhat miraculously) able to craft a resolution that (mostly) satisfies the narrative weight built up over an hour and a half of strange supernatural occurrences and breadcrumb-dropping, thanks in large part to a full-throated performance from Amy Madigan. Madigan’s deliriously comedic yet wicked performance is made all the more memorable by Trish Summerville’s costumes, Leo Satkovich’s makeup design, and remarkably plot-relevant hair by Melizah Anguiano Wheat.
Also omnipresent in the story are Alden Ehrenreich as Paul, a police officer having an affair with Grundy, and Austin Abrams as Anthony, a burnout perpetually ducking law enforcement. Locked in a seemingly never-ending, roadrunner and wile e. coyote-esque chase, the duo admittedly deliver a number of big laughs, but soak up a frustrating amount of screentime that could’ve been put to better use developing the film’s ultimate antagonist.
Still, even if Weapons misappropriates some of its runtime in service of comedy and fluff rather than story, Creggers crafts an undeniably engrossing mystery that offers just as many bone-chilling scares as it does gut-busting laughs. With its versatile cast, gruesome special effects makeup (by Jason Collins), and clever structure, Weapons is another singularly delightful-yet-dreadful horror offering from Zach Cregger.
Grade: A-
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Weapons
When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
