My Quick Review of Zach Cregger's WEAPONS

*There will be NO SPOILERS until I warn you later*

Are we potentially getting the mid-budget film renaissance?

After over a decade that has mostly been saturated by Marvel movie after Marvel movie and less attention bestowed upon creative, original stories that were embraced by the mainstream public, we may be seeing a shift. I just hope that I don't look back on this observation in a couple of years and realize that it aged like a glass of milk sitting on the platform of the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall Subway Station in the middle of July.

Horror films are a fascinating genre to look into because it is clear that the negative bias against them can be rather severe...and often for good reason.

Back in the 90s, there was a lot of popularity surrounding the likes of Scream and it deserved that popularity...but then you had films like I Know What You Did Last Summer which worked enough for a lark; I just wouldn't call it a good film.

However, it was in the 2000s that horror took a dive and got dominated by "torture porn". While films like Saw were successful at achieving that goal, you also have films like Hostel there to truly turn the mood dark and dour and bloody. 

It is no wonder that horror films suffered from prestige bias for so long, and I am guilty of frequently dismissing them. Having said all of that, we are seeing a lot of brilliant and creative minds coming out of the woodwork over the past decade. 

Going back to 2014's The Babadook and It Follows or 2015's The Witch, these films showed that Jennifer Kent, David Robert Mitchell, and Robert Eggers (respectively) all were trying something different with their ideas of horror. While some of them may have had jump scares, they were also about slow builds and atmospheric building. All of those films made my top 10 for their respective years, which is something that I can't say for most horror films since the turn of this century.

I could go on and on with this trajectory, but I am here to talk about the new horror film that has gotten a lot of people talking: Weapons, the second film by Zach Cregger who, much like another horror film icon Jordan Peele (more on him later), got his start in comedy by being a founding member of the troupe The Whitest Kids U' Know.

After the success of his first film, 2022's Barbarian, Cregger had various studios standing at attention for his new spec script which he described as a "horror epic" with a "more personal/emotional story". It has already become the stuff of legend but Jordan Peele was eagerly trying to bid for the rights to produce Weapons via his Monkeypaw Productions but when he lost out to Warner Bros, he promptly fired his managers (one of them actually being Zach Cregger's manager) out of immense frustration at losing the property.

Needless to say, Jordan Peele's outrage at losing a chance to produce the film was intriguing to many as he had become something of a beacon within the horror world after he managed to achieve what seemed to be impossible: getting multiple Oscar nominations for his stellar 2017 horror satire Get Out. Perhaps even more impressive, he managed to win Best Original Screenplay over the likes of Greta Gerwig for Ladybird and Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. 

So, let's take a quick little run into blogland and discuss Weapons. 

The marketing for Weapons has been exceptional in that it sets up the film's basic premise and then gives us quick flashes of everything else to the point where you truly have no idea where its going to go. The film begins with the narration of an unnamed girl; normally narration as a means to give the audience the needed exposition can be rather laborious or even downright lazy.

However - it works here when paired with the images that Cregger gives us.

At 2:17am, a group of 17 kids run out of their homes into the darkness, their destination(s) unknown. The reason that 2:17 is noticed is because a lot of the home's doorbell cams and alarm systems were set off as the kids ran out into the night.

But here is the twist: all 17 of the kids are from one 3rd grade classroom and just one kid remains: Alex Lily which leads many to suspect that the teacher Justine Gandy (the captivating Julia Garner) is somehow involved.

A month has passed and none of the children have been found. One such parent, Archer (Josh Brolin) is perhaps the most vehement towards Justine and also the one who wants to dig further than he feels the police are actually doing. 

As an ensemble, as a script, as a technical achievement, Weapons pretty much succeeds. It manages to be a film that dives into bizarre territory while also being fairly accessible to mainstream audiences. Cregger does so well with creating the eerie atmosphere, particularly the images of the children running out into the night which I suspect will become a pretty iconic horror image.

What I really loved was how much Cregger easily imbued humor into the film. I am not classifying Weapons as a horror comedy a la Shaun of the Dead but it is a horror/suspense thriller with strong comedic moments. The structure of these comedic bits are practically perfect because they don't feel out of place but they by no means diminish the impact of the darker elements.

If anything were to diminish the impact of the film, it would likely be that I found myself perhaps a tad bit disconnected from the film emotionally. There were certain beats where you could see the soul of the characters we are following but I never felt INVESTED in them so to speak. 

This was a film where I was greatly pulled along by the story and the aesthetics and the direction but the characters didn't truly feel as rich as I would've liked. I do think the actors were able to mine their roles the best that they could...and that isn't to say it was some kind of failure, it was just a little nitpick on my part. 

I do want to call out how much I loved certain moments where they chose not to use a musical score, particularly one scene where we watch a door open to a house and we wonder who may come out...only for the score to kick in when we see a person emerge. The quietness of it in the theatre was so chilling that it almost made me feel like I was watching a silent movie, almost like the moment Max Schreck emerges in Murnau's Nosferatu.

There is also one other major element I want to discuss here, but I will give an official spoiler warning once I dig a bit deeper. 

Amy Madigan is one of those character actresses whom we haven't seen much of recently, but was always someone I loved when she'd pop up in anything. She is, perhaps, most remembered for two films she made in 1989: Field of Dreams and Uncle Buck. 

Here she plays Gladys, the aunt to young Alex Lily and she is...a character. 

If there was any justice in the world of award shows, Amy Madigan should be in talks for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

With that, let's go into SPOILER TERRITORY:

I think we can liken Madigan's performance to that of Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby. Both of them are the villain of the story but they are also in their own bizarre way, the comic relief.

However, Madigan also gives Gladys a sinister nature that is rather chilling but this mix of humor and camp and brutal horror is honestly a masterclass at blending genres. She is introduced as the dying great aunt of Alex who is coming to stay with the family, but her ulterior motive is that she's a witch who is feeding off the energy of others to survive. She has the ability to turn her victims into her own weapons to kill for her...as we watch Benedict Wong's character kill his partner Terry by repeatedly slamming his head into him.

Alex's parents become catatonic, and to prove her power, she has them stab themselves in the face with forks causing Alex to understandably freak out...and my god, it is in these moments you can see the true menacing nature in Madigan's eyes. 

The final climax where Alex turns the tables on Gladys and the kids' spell turns them onto her is so insanely gratifying and hilarious all at one. Madigan's running through the neighborhood and cutting through people's houses while the 17 kids charge through windows in pursuit leading them tearing her apart limb from limb might seem gruesome but it is presented in such a gloriously dark and humorous way that you can't help but look past the gore. Such a satisfying end to such a great new addition to cinematic villains.

END OF SPOILERS & MY FINAL THOUGHTS:

Do I think that Weapons might've been a bit overhyped? Maybe a little.

This doesn't mean I am disappointed by it. There is no denying that Zach Cregger has a distinctive voice and he is able to craft a good script/story and mine all of the tension and humor out of it in the best ways. 

This is a film that I described as being accessible enough to mainstream audiences while diving into darker themes that feel very unsettling...and in the end, I would love that this leads people to check out other horror films they may not have ever come across before.

It may be a bit more sleek in its presentation, but it succeeds so much in the atmosphere and tonal shifts that I can't help but succumb a bit to the spell. I do wonder if it may not hold up to repeat viewings though. That isn't to say I think I would dislike it, but I do think some of the effects will diminish the overall experience.

RATING for WEAPONS: 4/5