Weapons Review
In 2022, former Whitest Kids U Know member Zach Creggor busted onto the scene as a fresh face in horror with Barbarian. While it is technically his second film (the first being a hit amongst high schoolers, Miss March__), _Barbarian felt more like the beginning of his career in a new genre. That makes Weapons his sophomore effort and it shows all the growing pains of a rising star.
The premise for Weapons is beautiful in how succinct and captivating it is all on its own. At 2:17 AM on a random school night, seventeen primary school students from the same class Naruto-run from their homes never to be seen again. No one it town has an explanation. The police can find no culprits. Townsfolk can only blame the teacher of the class, but that is a grief-motivated accusation that holds no water. Everyone is confused and most decide to carry on as if the world didn’t monumentally change. With such an buzzy setup, there are many avenues to explore, Creggor goes with something…. unexpected.
The bulk of Weapons’ plot is told by switching perspectives of the major players. At first, this seemed like it would become tiresome but Creggor quickly establishes an asynchronous nature to this model. Instead of each section ending in the same place, they bleed into each other and find grooves to overlap. What becomes immediately apparent is that these characters are flawed. There are messy drunks, adulterers, a drug addict that steals from children, and a grief addled graffiti artist. No one is fully sympathetic.
A strength on Creggor’s is the ability to bring humor into horrifying situations. Much like Jordan Peele, he made his way into horror through way of comedy and I’ve always felt that the genres are spiritually linked. They are very difficult to pull off and very easy to fail at. Plus, I find myself laughing when I get really scared in a movie (but that might just be me). The humor is what carries the movie for the first two thirds. There are some really funny scenes that find humor either in outlandish scenarios or by way of horror.
The main flaws with Weapons lie in its pacing and the “twist”. When there are so many avenues the premise can walk, settling on one can ultimately be a let down. While I by no means saw the reveal coming here, it still feels like something greater could have been made of the central mystery. What we get is fun and outrageous in its own way, but I was left wanting. The ultimate finale of the movie does save this for me though. You get to see something truly wild on screen and it shook up the whole theater.
!!! WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW !!!
While I was disappointed with the twist, there is one thing I loved: how uninterested the movie is in explaining the lore of it all. I feel like a lesser film would have need to explain the witch’s origins. Like we would learn the tree was from some special magic seeds, the glyphs on her bell would have ancient roots, her process would be broken down to remove all mystery, etc. Instead we get none of that. She is a witch who is finally at the end of her rope. She can’t be satiated and this is her last ditch effort. That’s all we needed