Alex Wheeler Movie Ops

There’s few things more American than a community mourning a bunch of kids. In real life, the cause is unabated school shootings (and perhaps outbreaks of deadly diseases among unvaccinated children), but in Weapons the cause is more mysterious. All but one child from Justine Gandy’s third-grade class goes missing, each having run from their homes into the darkness at precisely 2:17 am. The community’s grief and outrage are familiar, but the lack of a target isn’t. Without a singular reason to focus on, writer/director Zach Cregger moves between several key figures in the community, winding through a tale that is riveting, hilarious, and unsettling throughout.

What’s most impressive about Weapons is Cregger’s ability to manipulate our focus. The film is split into sections about each main character, and it moves not only from character to character but from tone to tone, refusing to be any one thing. It begins with Justine (Julia Garner), the much-scrutinized teacher, who proves too much of a mess to handle the situation. When someone spray paints ‘witch’ onto her car, she doesn’t seem particularly motivated to remove it. It’s not something easily fixed, so she leaves it, a marker of paranoia and ineptitude that draws laughter as it pops into otherwise tense frames.

Then there’s her ex, the bumbling and troubled cop Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), the equally bumbling addict James (Austin Abrams), the angrily grieving father Archer (Josh Brolin), and the remaining child from Justine’s class, Alex (Cary Christopher). They form a rough arc from serious to silly and back to serious again, but each character’s section gets moments of humor and terror. A sequence with James will have you screaming at the screen like all good oafs in horror movies do, and a perfect line delivery from Brolin will have you belly laughing.

The mishmash shouldn’t work. The interrupted and backtracking story shouldn’t work. The winding mess of motivations and alliances shouldn’t work. But it never loses the audience, shepherding us through its strange tale as docile as lambs. It’s a feat only pulled off by a filmmaker gaining implicit trust early on. Cregger does this by doing all the little things right. Every frame is full of details. Every edit is precise. The sheer filmmaking prowess puts you at ease. Cregger knows precisely what he’s doing, so you’re willing to follow him to any end.

It’s the ending, though, that’s the only thing that lessens Weapons. You might not sense it until you’ve exited the theater and breathed in some fresh air. Cregger never lessens his pace in the film’s crisp two hours and he never takes the plot in ludicrous directions. Everything builds to an understandable conclusion, and it’s the understandable part that’s the problem.

Horror should have a little something behind it. Thrills and chills are riveting in the theater, but to bore into your head they need to have a real-world application behind it. That doesn’t necessarily mean a clear metaphor, although that’s the easiest route. No, a horror film can have an amorphous feel behind it, tapping into things so broad and ungainly that the fear comes from our inability to get a handle on it.

But the latter is not what Weapons does. It’s too precise, it’s story too wrapped up in a nice bow, to feel like it’s poking at something we can’t understand. The premise’s application to real-life scenarios doesn’t pan out, either, as the story spins off in directions that take it far from its initial parallels. So why are you going through everything Weapons throws at you? I have no answer. None has manifested in my brain, and hence I can already feel the film slipping from my mind.

Still, an expertly made film has its pleasures, and it’s a joy to watch everyone involved nail what Cregger gives them. The actors, up and down the line, are pitch perfect, with the best work coming from Garner and young Christopher. They are the ones closest to the event without having clear roles to play. The parents can investigate and rage, but they are individuals left behind, close to those missing but not close enough for the tragedy to truly be theirs. They just showed up to class one day and no one else appeared. What are they supposed to do now?

That uncertainty is what powers Cregger’s wandering. He’s created a disturbing scenario with nowhere to go. So he wanders through the town’s tableau, catching moments of pain and humor as life continues on that prove more than enough to fill his film.

Release: In theaters now
Director: Zach Cregger
Writers: Zach Cregger
Cast: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan