“Weapons,” from “Barbarian” director Zach Cregger, has brought a new light to the horror genre. The movie takes aspects of dark humor, thrillers and horror and mixes them all into one to create a beautifully new, refreshing movie.
When a classroom of elementary schoolers, except for one student, all suddenly disappear at exactly 2:17 a.m., the entirety of their suburban town goes berserk. The parents of the missing students try to find someone to blame, with the target suspect being the students’ teacher, Justine Gandy, played by Julia Garner. The movie follows the classic “who-done-it” plotline with different perspectives throughout the movie as everyone tries to find the culprit.
Cregger uses a sick, twisted darkly humorous take on multiple missing persons cases within a small, suburban town. The movie takes viewers out of their own realm, placing them strategically in this suburban town and forcing them to realize that these horrific events can truly happen to anyone—a horror take that is quite frankly scarier than the typical ghouls and goblins.
The suburbs are a typical “safe space” for people to get away and provide a secure, prosperous place to call home and raise their potential family. Yet, “Weapons” is a suburbanite’s nightmare. Cregger takes advantage of “safe space” and warps this suburban town in Pennsylvania into a terrific, uncommon horror scene. It’s an unusual crime-filled story where 17 elementary students “run away” from their homes unprompted, with no explanation behind why they ran out of their homes at the exact same time in the exact same way. That same run is now a well-known stance, being arms out in an upside-down “V” shape, sweeping the internet with a new “reaction” photo. Nonetheless, the horrors still persist.
Though the audience is wondering throughout the film, “Why did these kids run away?” The world Cregger builds of a realistic aspect to the suburb’s horrors is almost ripped down with the use of a more “magical” take on why all of these kids run away, which is revealed at the end of the film. It breaks the relatability and connection for the town that the viewers have gained throughout the entire film, breaking that realistic tone to be able to explain that “why.”
Whether the end of the movie takes you out of the intended realm, or if Cregger still managed to keep you hooked on his story, it’s hard to disagree that “Weapons” isn’t a refreshing film that has successfully helped revive the horror genre and an absolute must-see.
