When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
Writer / director Zach Cregger‘s “Weapons” is one of the most winning disappointments of the year. Let me explain. This deeply unsettling supernatural horror film takes a chilling premise and pushes it into relentlessly disturbing territory, but not in the hinted direction of the film’s crackerjack marketing. It’s creative and surprising, even if the eventual reveal feels like a bit of a letdown.
In the quiet, working-class town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, seventeen children from the same third-grade class inexplicably vanish at 2:17 a.m.. The kids leave their homes as if drawn by an unseen force, never to return. Only one little boy in the class remains (Cary Christopher), but he swears to know nothing. The mass disappearance sends the community into chaos, suspicion, and grief, with neighbors turning on each other and long-buried secrets beginning to surface.
It’s a frightening premise that’s instantly intriguing. The story is told through a fragmented nonlinear structure, unfolding in overlapping pieces from the multiple perspectives of a teacher (Julia Garner) with a checkered past who is haunted by guilt and confusion, a grieving father (Josh Brolin) desperate for answers, and a police officer (Alden Ehrenreich) whose investigation becomes increasingly compromised. As their stories intersect, the audience is fed haunting fragments of truth that never quite fit together neatly.
From its creepy opening voiceover narration that instantly grabs your attention to the final, gut-punch of an ending, the film thrives on shadowy, oppressive imagery and an atmosphere thick with unease. Cregger uses silence and negative space just as effectively as the more visceral moments, though when the violence comes, it’s both shocking and brutal. The horror here is twofold. There’s a disconcerting psychological dread that worms its way into your head long before the bloody brutality happens.
One of the most disturbing elements of the film is how authority figures are depicted. Parents, teachers, even the police become menacing and sometimes predatory, which flips the idea of safe havens for kids into something decidedly not. For this reason (and many others), I do not recommend you take children to this film for any reason. It’s the stuff of nightmares for adults, and I can’t imagine how much this would frighten a little one.
MILD SPOILERS INCOMING. Please skip the next paragraph if you’ve yet to see the movie.
Where the film started to enter its down slide is when the supernatural and occult elements are revealed. It’s disappointing to go that route, especially because the mystic elements are always present but the story is so much better than falling back into witches and voodoo. It’s frustrating to have invested so much time into the story only for the writers to lean on a slightly lazy way out. There’s also no tidy twist. The explanation arrives in fragments, requiring audiences to connect the dots themselves. That ambiguity works in the movie’s favor though, reinforcing the central themes of trauma, addiction, and the unsettling idea that people can become “weapons” against each other in the physical, emotional, and spiritual sense.
“Weapons” is a very bleak movie that offers no comfort nor catharsis, just the lingering knowledge that evil is almost impossible to contain. It’s not a film for kids, casual horror dabblers, or anyone expecting a happy ending, but for fans of atmospheric, slow-burn supernatural horror with a psychological edge, it’s gripping and grimly fascinating.
