You know that reel with cats where one of the cats is about to commit some mischief that you are very sure it's going to do, then it pulls a hilarious last-minute improvisation when it realises the other cat (or human) is about to catch it red-handed? Well, Weapons is akin to watching one of those reels, but with a small difference. It will generate some chills first before making you laugh. You expect something to happen soon, and you're anxiously watching the buildup to that moment you expect to happen, but then it upends that expectation with a smug expression — and I mean in the best way possible.
There are scenes in Weapons that made me laugh quite a bit, and that's not something you expect a horror film to do. I'm not talking about unintentionally funny. I mean situations that are genuinely funny while something scary is happening simultaneously. Now that's something you don't see often. I was looking forward to Weapons with plenty of excitement because I loved Zach Cregger's previous horror film, Barbarian. Among the main reasons I loved it is its ingenious storytelling, which involves the ability to keep you guessing what sort of ominous activity is exactly happening around the characters, but also who the "hero" or "heroine" of the story is.
Those who have seen Barbarian will know how Cregger hits us with an unforeseen development midway through the film that completely catches us off guard. Weapons does this more than once, even though it's not as grim as the former. Without giving anything away, it begins with a baffling event: the disappearance of all children, except for one, from the classroom taught by a teacher named Justine, played by Julia Garner ("Ozark"). The irate parents of the missing children, naturally, point all their fingers at Justine. Did she have anything to do with this? Is it some supernatural event? Is it a creature or another human being behind all this?
Cregger gives you most of the answers; not all of them. That, I'd say, is a good quality for a horror film, because after you get out of the theatre, you're still thinking about some of the unresolved mysteries, but also immensely satisfied at some of the hilariously wild, cathartic developments that happen in the end. Because until that point, you're not thinking about whether we could make such bold storytelling choices inside a horror movie.
It's not something that even Cregger did in Barbarian, which was, by the way, one supremely dark, disquieting horror film. However, in that too, Cregger attempted something no other horror film did before — making us feel briefly empathetic towards the so-called "terrifying antagonist".
Weapons, however, knows whose side it's supposed to take. And it takes a while to get us to realise which character(s) we are supposed to root for, even though it doesn't make a lot of effort to get us close to them, enough to feel a sort of kinship.
In that regard, I would say Weapons is the horror movie equivalent of Pulp Fiction. You enjoy watching these characters, but don't feel close to them. You are more interested in seeing how their paths cross in the most unexpected ways and how they manage to get out of the mess created by all the twists and turns beyond their control.
Quentin Tarantino was the first name that came to my mind for one more reason: a non-linear narrative, split by multiple chapters; in this case, named after the key players. Now you might be wondering if it's something like Strange Darling, which came out last year, also a non-linear thriller told through chapters. It's not. That was a film that gave us all the answers, irrespective of the non-linear trickery.
Weapons is relatively more wicked in its design, with a wicked sense of humour to go along with it. What makes everything more interesting is how it delves into occasionally surreal territories that get you wondering if everything is an allegory for something else, in the same way that storytellers like Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Jordan Peele or David Lynch did before. There's a reason I mentioned these four names. Anyone familiar with their works should recognise a few tributes here and there. This is easily the best horror film I've seen this year since Sinners. All that pre-release hype, I'd say, is justified.
Film: Weapons
Director: Zach Cregger
Cast: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong
Rating: 4/5
