When I was a kid, I was an avid watcher of the series Unsolved Mysteries (which has since found new life on Netflix). The late Robert Stack narrating a series of cold cases, ranging from abductions, UFOs, and conspiracy theories, all set against a backdrop of thick fog, sporting a trenchcoat. It’s amazing how the combination of the frightening and unexplainable serves as a form of mental catnip for human curiosity. Much remains to be said about the economy of grief and the rabbit holes of possibilities we travel to explain its origins. If something bad happens, the source or explanation is our medicine. But it only goes as far as masking what will be the eventual (sometimes) lifelong journey of phantom limb syndrome.
In writer/director Zach Cregger’s second feature, “Weapons,” a profound and unfathomable thing does happen to the small town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania. Seventeen children, all at 2:17 am, run from their houses in the dead of night and disappear. No motive, no single trace as to where they went, and what’s left is a summation of grainy Ring camera footage of kids running into the woods like a helicopter. For a month, these disappearances have ensnarled Maybrook into fits of anger, paranoia, and unabashed mourning.
A scene from New Line Cinema’s “Weapons,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release
Often in events of confusion, some will look for a scapegoat. It just so happens the children all have one thing in common: they are students in Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) third-grade class. While it would be improbable for her to be the culprit, she is still under very heavy suspicion anyway – particularly drawing the sneering eye of Archer (Josh Brolin), father of one of the disappeared children. It turns out, there is one child indeed left behind in Alex (Cary Christopher). However, he doesn’t have any insights as to how the phenomenon happened either.
Cregger places the hands in the mystery within a method of non-linear storytelling somewhat akin to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” (1999), as each person tries to navigate just what the hell happened to these children? They didn’t disappear out of thin air. But perhaps the scariest thing, other than the initial collective event, is not knowing if there is a dark finality over the hill. Creeger’s first feature, “Barbarian,” is known for how it bends within the twists and turns of its story. Just when you think you have a handle on it, it flips into something else entirely. With “Weapons,” the writer/director is pretty overt in telegraphing what is currently causing the town’s issues. However, it feels so far-fetched in the moment that you won’t even consider it a possible option.
A scene from New Line Cinema’s “Weapons,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release
With the purviews of Justine, Archer, and Alex, Cregger includes other characters, such as a well-to-do principal, Marcus (Benedict Wong), a troubled local police officer, Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), and an unhoused addict named James (Austin Abrams). The six characters in question serve as our guides through the confusion of getting to the bottom of this occurrence. While the perspectives change, so do the genre methods in which the story implores the viewer to stay invested. Suspense and horror are the ultimate drivers, but there’s an element of forbidden romance between Justine and Paul, a mystery/obsessive detective feature following Archer, and even a stoner comedy with James’s hijinks.
One might expect all these flavors to combine into a bitter-tasting dish, but Creeger skillfully intersects these stories at various points to keep you engaged. It’s not necessarily that a particular character will go looking for trouble, per se. Instead, some of the fun comes from them stumbling upon it and “Weapons” evolving from that point forward. To fortify the film’s tight, always-in-motion energy, cinematographer Larkin Seiple uses a lot of trailing style with the camera. Other than the still moment to invoke fear, it always feels like the audience is in a state of moment with the characters on screen. The state of motion only becomes more frantic as you get closer to the third act and the eventual marriage of gore, zaniness, and depravity.
Toward the film’s latter half, it’s where Cregger unveils his dualistic secret weapon of performances. Amy Madigan plays Gladys, Alex’s aunt, who comes to town in hospice. For some reason, her arrival provokes a lot of strange occurrences. Madigan plays up warmth, but also malevolence, once you peel back the layers of her character. Madigan’s force of nature aura eventually gets paired with the soft, resolute sadness of Christopher’s portrayal of Alex. Imagine being a child left behind in the wake of a tragedy, and how isolating it must feel. The feelings get compounded by what the film eventually reveals about the character’s struggles.
At the core of Cregger’s “Weapons” is the earthquake of loss and how the tremors affect everybody within its parameters differently. There is a cause for this specific instance; it doesn’t limit Cregger to at least make the viewer second-guess what their eyes are telling them. For example, there’s a particular image of a firearm Archer has within a nightmare of wondering where his son is. When an inexplicable tragedy happens, it’s easy to want to leave no stone unturned. To one person, “Weapons” could be a metaphor for school shootings. In another eye of the beholder, the film could be about a “literal witch hunt” when there’s no one else to blame.
The human psyche will roam when there’s no set of words to nail down a feeling, and Cregger counts on this. The director’s best twist yet might be giving it to you and laying the groundwork for exploring other possibilities anyway.
