Since Weapons just started streaming on HBO Max, it’s the perfect time to watch Zach Cregger’s jaw-dropping WTF horror movie, which opened in theaters in August of this year. Cregger’s follow-up to his fantastic, bat sh** crazy Barbarian was even more bonkers.
Yeah, yeah, I know…many people didn’t get it, or proclaimed that it was “not horror”, but horror is not a genre that can be gate-kept. Horror is in the eye of the beholder, and with the subject matter, the crazy violent ending and the amount of gore, I count Weapons as horror. You can fight me on it if you want, but I won’t change my mind.
In Weapons, we are immediately given the same information that is dispatched on the poster and in the film’s trailer: At 2:17 a.m., every child in Miss Gandy’s classroom got out of their beds and walked outside of their home (well, ran outside…with their arms spread out to the sides as if they were pretending to be airplanes), only to disappear.
We get to know the townspeople, including Justine Gandy herself (Julia Garner), Archer (Josh Brolin), whose son is one of the kids who have gone missing, school Principal Marcos (Benedict Wong), Justine’s ex-boyfriend Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), druggie James (Austin Abrams), and Alex (Cary Christopher), who is the one and only child in Miss Gandy’s class that did not disappear.
It's an interesting choice to tell the story through the eyes of each of these characters, sometimes even showing the exact same events through different vantage points. This story-telling method is pretty effective, and I thought it was a brilliant decision.
Obviously, Justine is suspected by the parents, since all of the missing children were in her class, and Alex is also questioned extensively, but both proclaim to know nothing. Justine is suspended from her job, and begins basically stalking Alex, who is having issues of his own. It seems his mom’s Aunt Gladys moved in with the family due to health issues, and somehow has managed to gain control of Mom and Dad, forcing Alex to act as if everything is normal.
Weapons amps the bloody action up for its ending
The storyline unravels at a quick pace, leading up to an absolutely action-packed (and violent) finale, and I won’t tell you anything more about that, because if you haven’t already seen Weapons, you need to experience it for yourself.
The cast is superb (give Garner ALL of the awards), the story is satisfying and crazy, and there were definitely moments I was at the edge of my theatre seat. Weapons began streaming on HBO Max on October 24, so hurry up and watch it before Halloween night!