Weapons Review

The trouble with watching films labeled "elevated horror" is that you are often so busy reading the tea leaves that you risk missing the visceral pleasure of the ride. Zach Cregger's Weapons may not be a bona fide elevated horror in the vein of Get Out (racism) or Talk To Me (trauma), but there is an ever-present sense that it wants you to peek behind the curtain and ask what it is really about. As often happens with films like this, the payoff is not immediate. You leave the theatre, turn it over in your mind, and only later begin to reconcile with it.

That sensation begins in the very first scene, when a sickly-sweet child's voice narrates a tragedy that recalls the peculiarly American scourge of mass school shootings. 17 children from Ms Justine Gandy's class at Maybrook Elementary - all but the shy, scrawny Alex Lilly - vanish one night. They walk out of their beds as if in a trance, arms outstretched like they are running through a sunlit field.

The story unfolds in a series of interconnected chapters that linger on the town's inhabitants in oddly precise detail. There is Ms Gandy (Julia Garner), vilified by locals who suspect she had something to do with the disappearances; Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), a desperate parent searching for his missing child; Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a beat cop married to the police captain's daughter and still tangled in old feelings for Ms Gandy; and James (Austin Abrams), the town's strung-out drug addict.

The first indication that something is amiss comes in the narrative's refusal to stay fixed on the central horror. It luxuriates almost apathetically in these people's petty conflicts, addictions and grudges. Jumpscares appear now and then, but the camera keeps turning away from the larger tragedy, as if the town itself is determined to keep it out of frame. Each character is an island of selfishness, intent on pushing through life without truly confronting the enormity of what has happened. All the while, you want to shout: What about the missing kids? Can we get back to the kids?

That emotional detachment is mirrored in the town itself. Barely a month after the disappearances, Maybrook has slid into an eerie semblance of normalcy. The police, right up to the captain, offer hollow platitudes such as "We are thoroughly exploring every possibility." School is back in session. The principal dutifully checks boxes, assigning counselors and filing reports. Ms Gandy drinks herself into forgetfulness. One parent of a missing child shrugs with a resigned "life goes on". Even Archer, who is still actively searching, is focused on his own child alone. The mind-boggling, heart-wrenching reality of 17 vanished children is drowned in a collective push to return to old routines, without acknowledging that life as they knew it is gone for good.

The most chilling moment arrives when one of Maybrook's respectable citizens becomes hypnotized by the same mysterious force that lured the children away. Blood-soaked and murderous, he runs through the streets, and apart from a few startled screams, no one stops him. No one even makes the attempt.

Although the film can be too opaque in revealing its intentions, it cements Cregger as an auteur in the making. There is a deliberate precision in Larkin Seiple's cinematography, which gives chase sequences a heady, roller-coaster momentum, and peaks in the face-ripping good finale. Equally striking is the background score, which avoids the usual horror clichés in favour of something more unsettling and unexpected. Most memorable is the deceptively cheerful music that plays as the hypnotized children drift into the streets, a choice that makes the moment almost unbearably eerie.

The final act erupts into an astonishing, clamorous spectacle of body horror and hysteria. It works as a kind of catharsis after the suppression and detachment of what precedes it, and it even has flashes of dark humour.

Beyond the business of crafting horror sequences - many of them involving the unsettling use of kitchen utensils like forks, peelers and scissors - Weapons is also about the quieter, everyday horrors people inflict on one another. One of the most difficult scenes to watch is a chase-and-arrest sequence in which Paul catches James attempting a break-in. As he searches James's pockets, Paul is pricked by a used needle, sending him into a rage. In that moment, he forgets he is a cop and that James is unarmed, knocking him out in a burst of pure, panicked violence. Both Alden Ehrenreich as Paul and the Austin Abrams playing James deliver raw, bruising performances that are viscerally felt.

Moments like this point to the heart of Weapons: in the face of true horror, people retreat inward. They wallow in their private griefs until they either give up or move on. Maybrook becomes a patchwork of isolated, festering traumas, each resident quietly choosing denial and enforced forgetfulness over confrontation and change. The missing children are less a mystery to be solved than a wound to be hidden. And perhaps that is the point. The real horror here is not supernatural at all. It is the quiet, implicit, collective decision to look the other way.