Weapons

★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

Weapons (2025)

Runtime: 128 minutes

MPAA: Rated R for strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content and drug use.

A certain degree of skepticism is inevitable in movies of almost any genre. Weapons breaks expectations in minutes. From the start, you can clearly see and feel the artistic drive from writer, director and producer Zach Cregger. Refusing to conform to genre expectations, his elaborate framing, camera movements and editing feel highly personal. The same can be said about the script. Confident and unique, it's not a conventional horror movie in any sense. Jumpscares are inevitable, yes, but they're sparsely used and deployed unexpectedly, relying more on the lack of score, build-up, atmosphere and tension to induce an increasingly unnerving sensation. When characters become possessed and start chasing their targets down, I felt genuine discomfort and dread as the scene unravelled in slow, yet disquieting ways.

It's a random and unassuming midnight. At 2:17 a.m., all students except one in Ms. Justine Gandy's (Julia Garner) class wake up, head downstairs and start running away from their houses in a straight line. The whole community is saddled with confusion, grief and mystery. Justine becomes a primary suspect, parents demand answers, and the police are scrambling around, interviewing suspects and collecting evidence. Unfortunately, there seems to be no breakthroughs in the case, and a month passes.

Cregger uses an unconventional character-driven structure instead of a straightforward mystery narrative, an ambitious storytelling decision. Broken down into non-linear chapters, we are immersed into the perspective of Justine, sulking parent Arthur Graff (Josh Brolin), police officer Paul Morgan (Aiden Ehrenreich), criminal James Anthony (Austin Abrams), principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong), and Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), the only student that didn't disappear into the night. These perspectives intersect when they interact with one another, eventually converging as they reach the same destination. The daily life and certain complexities about each of his characters are explored, including Justine's alcoholism, Arthur's anger and grief, and Alex's isolation, trauma and forced complicity. However, the chapters of Paul and James are a rare weak link in the slightly unfocused midsection. One could interpret this narrative detour as an allegory to police inefficiency, a self-aware commentary on why they couldn't have synthesised evidence of children running in a straight line, but it's unlikely to take you out of the experience. Marcus' chapter that plays afterward introduces Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a suspicious person who acts rather dramatically; it can be automatically said that Madigan steals the show and gets the gears running again.

As such, Weapons offers more emotional investment and ability to discuss and engage with its themes than not only most horror movies but movies, period (I'm looking at you, The Drama). Each perspective doesn't feel episodic and repetitive in any sense, offering substantial narrative progression, my favourite chapters being the ones centered on Justine, Arthur and Alex. Justine and Arthur enter dreams that reveal their character, and this drives them to uncover more details on the children's disappearances. Alex has to witnesses and bear a multitude of traumatic events, beginning from school bullying, seeing his parents being possessed to having to follow the villain's instructions in order to survive. I hope he'll be okay after all that's happened. Even if it isn't as complex or hard-hitting like the best of television or drama, each part is succinct and compelling enough to drive the mystery forward. The tension somehow almost never dissipates despite this structure.

Back to the filmmaking and horror elements. As mentioned, Cregger knows how to build and sustain dread, even showing the point-of-view of certain characters who are possessed, one scene involving a person just running all the way from a house to a gas station, which I found hilarious. Madigan really gives the creeps, and the rest of the ensemble step up to the game as well. And that's the magic of it all. Weapons is funny and unsettling simultaneously, the visual language always communicating this clearly. Without spoling, the climax weaves these sprawling threads together brilliantly, resulting in a satisfying and gruesome conclusion. The children and most of the affected people are physically free from control and are fine, but they'll never really be the same again. The themes of grief, trauma and emotional closure for everyone can get a little hazy when one looks at the big picture overall, but even if Weapons isn't a profound experience, you can't deny that you'll have a thrilling time under the hands of someone who is willing to take risks and break free from formula.