By Justin Partridge Weapons
Starring: Julia Gardner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, and Austin Abrams
Written & Directed by: Zach Cregger
*excitedly* Oo, fuck, Willow!
I missed Barbarian with an audience.
As Zach Cregger’s follow-up started to move on the same trajectory; buzzy, willfully obfuscating trailer, a fascinatingly game press cycle, and a cast that seemed more than over the moon about the movie itself, I resolved myself that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.
And holy shit, am I glad I didn’t.
But I should admit, it’s not just because Weapons is pretty shocking and brutal. It is that, sure, and sustains a completely different sort of flavor of unbearable tension than Barbarian. All that is on the table. But I think the real juice of the experience is…just trying to grapple with what the fuck this movie actually ends up being. Because I can almost promise that it’s not whatever you think. It certainly wasn’t in my case. Making a strong, eye-gouging, screamingly funny case for my movie of the year.
By now, you’ve surely heard the set up. One night, at the precisely creepy, thematically portentous time of 2:17 AM, an unassuming teacher’s (a brazenly magnetic Julia Gardner; having quite the year between this and surfing away with FF) class steals away into the night. Never to return. But already, Cregger is burying leads. Because that’s not entirely true. Something the movie also wastes little time giving up.
You see, not all of them disappeared. The moon-eyed Alex (played with a hangdog pluckiness by Cary Christopher) is the classmate that seems spared. Sparking even more debate and dark speculation as to where and what happened to the rest of the class And better still, the movie absolutely sits in the whole ordeal, mining much of it’s early shocks and eeriness from the void the event has left in the fictional town of Maybrook. Investigations are undertaken, town meetings are thundered through, and the town lurches forward as best it can. Lashing out at Ms. Gandy and then turning inward, like Archer Graff (a raw, but down-as-hell Josh Brolin), who seems dangerously close to a breakdown and carries the self-righteousness of a white male property owner as he constantly storms into the police station, demanding action and answers. Which, naturally, escalates into full on harassment and stalking of the waifish teacher.
But that’s just one slice of Weapons. An effective and well-deployed slice to be sure, but this is the movie in cruising speed. As the Paul Thomas Anderson-esque chapter headings denote, Cregger and his cast are playing a much larger, much crazier game. One that seems to gleefully revel in NOT telling you it’s rules.
Therefore, as more and more of the internal conflicts start to bubble, given a sort of coy context as more and more of our cast’s perspectives are filled in, Weapons then kicks up several gears. Bleeding, quite literally in some cases, the internal strife of Gandy, Archer, and the fringes of Maybrook, into the new external threat. The actual reason those kids got up out of their beds.
And my fellow brothers, sisters, and gender-resisters in horror…it’s a goddamn doozy. Truly several dozen turns that I couldn’t have predicted even on my best and brightest day. All I had to do was enjoy the ride, along with my now full assembled audience, who were right along that track with me for the most part. Squirming and gawping and then nervously giggling into belly laughing through the majority of a blissfully brisk runtime.
Because that’s another thing I feel y’all should be prepared for. Just how out and out FUNNY this goddamn movie ends up being. And further, funny in a way that never sacrifices it’s tension or emotional power just for a gag. Juggling its tonality in a truly impressive fashion. In fact, I would argue that the film’s final character piece into the finale, is actually actively sad. There are surely spikes of tension breaking comedy, but throughout the final acts, you find yourself oddly invested in the plight of Maybrook and it’s likely-doomed citizens.
And yet, you also can’t help but…well, laugh at them. And I am not sure the movie admonishes you for such actions. It is, after all, primarily conceived by a former sketch comedian who has made little bones about how he dove into very personal and very dark places for this script. Barbarian had these same moments of levity, but these seem, if you’ll forgive the pun, far, far more weaponized. Like Cregger has found a newfound edge to his work, along with the rise in scaling and ambition; both attributes across the whole film are on full display.
And while people now debate the meaning and allegorical context of every aspect of this movie (it’s very fun to do so), I write here happily that Weapons is just a crazy well-produced, massively entertaining, fresh feeling horror. Exactly the sort of thing we need more of. And exactly the sort of thing one goes to the movies FOR.
Weapons is in theatres now.
