From New Line Cinema and Zach Cregger, the wholly original mind behind Barbarian, comes a new horror/thriller: Weapons. When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance. The film stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, with Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.
What We Thought:
Looking at early reactions I’m going to be in the minority who accurately tell you that Weapons isn’t that good. It has a couple of good, if not great, scenes, but a handful of scenes doesn’t make a movie.
If you are going to see it, go in knowing as little as possible. I had no idea what it was about. All I knew was that it was from Zach Cregger, the man behind Barbarian. I didn’t love that one either, but it had enough in it that made me want to see his follow-up. Weapons also has a solid cast with Julia Garner, James Brolin, Benedict Wong and others.
My biggest issue with thriller-horror combos is that I always sit there waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. Blame M. Night Shyamalan because all of these types of films leave me unimpressed. A bunch of kids go missing, one student and their teacher might have the answers all the parents seek. You sit there waiting for the explanation and 99% of the time it doesn’t work for me. I don’t get into supernatural stuff. I don’t believe in ghosts, witchcraft, voodoo or anything like that so these movies never work for me.
I also feel like you have to be dumb to really get into them. This movie cuts itself into pieces focusing on the story from each character’s point of view. First it’s the teacher and we learn someone wrote WITCH on her car with red paint. When it’s another character’s POV we learn that character accidentally ordered red paint. Gee I wonder if it’s going to turn out being that person who wrote WITCH on her car? When you see it happening and the audience reacts to it, you feel like as a society we all should have figured that out 10 minutes ago.
What stinks is that the couple of scenes in Weapons I did like are outstanding. Some of the violence is top-notch and I wish the movie kept that tone the entire time. The final action set piece is fantastic which made me even more disappointed in the fact that I didn’t love the whole film. The acting is solid especially the young actor playing the surviving student. There is some decent gore along with the violence as well. I just wish I didn’t sit there waiting for the explanation to hit. It could have been a demented new take on classic fairytale storytelling, but like Barbarian it has major tonal shifts. You’ll find yourself laughing with it as much as you might be “frightened” if you’re the type of person who enjoys jumpscares (I don’t). If you liked Barbarian, Heretic, The Black Phone and those types of movies you’ll get more out of it than I did.
The Nerds Templar 