Weapons

When an entire classroom of children (barring one) disappears overnight at 2:17 am, their vodka-guzzling teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), becomes the target of a witch-hunt by anxious, angry parents. What happened at 2:17 am?

Oozes with gore, dark comedy, and a bonkers finale. Weapons is one of those horrors where the less you know, the better. In an era when the entire film is mapped out in teasers, trailers, and teasers to the trailers, Weapons kept its audiences in the dark with its ominous promos and seemingly expository posters. After Zach Cregger's brilliant debut, Barbarian scaring the bejesus out of anyone booking an Airbnb, the comedian-turned-horror filmmaker trades subtlety for in-your-face, eye-popping loudness. The film doesn't waste any time establishing the central mystery, opening with the unsettling sight of kids running in their PJs, arms stretched, gliding through dimly lit roads with their arms stretched out. While capturing the resulting hysteria of the grieving parents and the all-too-shocked teacher, Weapons pieces together six different perspectives. The shifting POVs in a non-linear timeline might come off as a gimmick for some, but when all the threads are knitted together, Weapons leads to a final act that can best be described as over-the-topmost-top. If the recently released and atmospherically similar Bring Her Back filled cinemas with existential gloom, Weapons is the crowd-pleasing antidote best enjoyed with a collective shriek or two.

Even overfamiliar horror tropes and paper-thin characters can't slow down the twisted fun of Weapons. As mentioned earlier, subtlety isn't the greatest trait here. Even the most nail-biting of jump scares are accompanied by moments of crude humor or actors yelling expletives in the most earnest, nearly improvised manner. But the zaniness is in such indulgent abundance that Weapons seamlessly blends deep themes of grief and loss with shlocky violence and campy characters straight out of a midnight screening B-movie (the ones with a lot of red food colouring spraying all over). It has a bit of Hereditary's familial trauma beats, the glum dad (Josh Brolin in this case) from "missing children" thrillers like Prisoners, the small-town paranoia ever-present in Stephen King's books, and even some parental rage straight out of The Shining. When blended with Cregger's own sense of twisted humor, these ingredients turn Weapons into a lovechild of the most intense psychological thrillers and a sadistically funny Final Destination flick.

More than jump scares and self-aware humor. Thanks to Julia Garner's empathetic lead act and the supporting cast's commitment to straight-faced humor in the randomest of scenarios, Weapons also has a gritty feel. The urgency of finding the children fills the brain with endless worst-case scenarios. Cregger ultimately rewards his anxious audience by pulling the rug under their feet for a satisfying closure, the kind that's rare at a time when horror auteurs are so fixated with open-ended, multi-layered theatrics. The ear-splitting jump scares don't just work to terrify the audience in overdone James Wan-like fashion, but rather, they all build up to an exorcising experience, one that prompts you to come out with a sense of accomplishment and awe. In other words, watch Weapons with a packed crowd. Just ensure your children are tucked in safely at night.