Weapons

A child’s voiceover at the beginning of a horror/mystery film might not be the most novel choice, but there’s a way director Zach Creggers uses it in his second film, Weapons, in a matter-of-fact way, making it that much more eerie. Voiced by Scarlett Sher, the voiceover starts telling a story about a town where something strange happened, and the townsfolk were so embarrassed by the incident that they buried it within themselves. It’s a startling detail for a horror movie, where an untoward ‘supernatural’ incident becomes the cause of terror, haunted mansions and urban legends. But Cregger appears more interested in our human reaction – of shame, sadness and denial – to the said incident, refusing to articulate it to the rest of the world. It’s most apparent in the way Cregger uses George Harrison’s Beware of Darkness – probably too literal a choice for a horror film. However, it’s only when the mournful ballad plays as 17 school kids running with their arms spread out, disappear into darkness, is when we register the grief. As the opening voiceover warns us – this incident will never be solved.

In Barbarian, his solo screenwriting and directorial debut, Zach Cregger gave us one of the most watchable horror films in recent times, transforming a generic premise into a truly captivating, suspenseful and thematically rich story. Barbarian, released with a rather flimsy promotional campaign, quickly became a phenomenon, finding favour with even the most staunch horror aficianados. Barbarian’s treatment of horror — which was much more than simply jump scares and bloodcurdling screams — heralded the arrival of Cregger as an exciting new voice in a genre which has not always been as inventive as its potential has demanded. Three years later, Cregger is back with Weapons, a more lavishly mounted, studio-backed enterprise led by big names (Josh Brolin, Julia Gardner, Benedict Wong). Post Barbarian, the expectations from Cregger have been high, and in his sophomore directorial, he delivers on most counts.

Weapons movie review & rating: There’s something so eerie about a little girl calmly narrating the events of a horrific night during which, exactly at 2.17 am, seventeen children from the same class got out of their beds, walked out into the dark streets, and vanished, that you don’t want ‘Weapons’ to let you off the hook. Not even for a moment. Writer-director Zach Cregger, anointed the new horror-meister with the 2022 ‘Barbarian’, returns with a small-town-mystery-disappearance which could feel like a trope– so very Stephen Kingian in its thematic concerns- which manages to stay fresh and compelling, but only up until a point.

Weapons, directed and written by Zach Cregger had one of the most amazing promotional campaigns seen in this year for any film. The horror follows the story of a small town where kids ran out of their homes on their own accord never to be seen again. The trailer focused on how these kids seemed freer in the dark night running away from their families. However, the actual film is nothing close to what anyone would have expected. Visually stunning Weapons has an eerie tone to it with a background score as good as that of Nosferatu. The film begins with the narration of a small child, setting up the tone of the story as well as the situation around the incident. She reveals that one morning while the day was as ordinary as one could expect, one class had 17 kids missing. No one showed up to the class that day expect one boy Alex and the teacher Justine Gandy. While the teacher would be the usual suspect if this were a usual crime thriller, the cops and the parents in the town are baffled when ring light cameras and security details of their own homes revealed how the kids on the previous night had just run out of their homes on their own.