‘Weapons’ Review: Julia Garner and JOsh Brolin in Zach Cregger’s Entharallingly Strange But Psychologically Lite Follow-Up to ‘Barbarian’

If Sam Raimi Was An Obvioses Influence on Zach Cregger’s Head-Turning 2022 Horror BreakthROUGH, BarbarianStephen King’s Imprint Sems to be All Over The Writer-Director’s More Ambitious Follow-Up, Weapons. Framed As A True Story, It Measures the Shockwaves in A Community When Almost An Entire Class of Elementary School Children Vanishes at the Same Time One Night. It’s Even More Reminiscent of King Once A Creepy Figure in What Looks Like Messy Clown Makeup Starts Making Appearances. But any kinship with the Master Storyteller Dissolves WHEN The MOVIE MAKES ABRUPT SWERVE MIDWAY INTO WITCHY HAG HORROR BUT FAILS TO BOLSTER THAT TURN DURN COMPELING MYTHY.

In Many Ways, this is An Expertly Crafted Chiller. IT’s shot by larkin seple with atmosphric style to burn, full of snaking tracking sequences that Exert a mesmerizing grip CREGGER THAT COVERS A Wide Tonal Range While Building an Unsettling Soundscape. A strong Cast and An intriging chapter structure also works in it Favor. But Ultimately, It’s Not Really About Anything Much.

Given the eereie phenomenon of children who leave their homes precisely at 2:17 am – running through the Darkened Suburban Strets with Their Arms Accompanied by George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness” – It’s Conceivable that Many Will See See It As An Allegory for the Shattering Upheval of Tragedy Freya -Town Towns Acroupns. The Hypocrisy of a Society Continuly Looking for Scapegoats to Assign Blue While Refusion to Examine Its Own Dark Heart Provides A Semblance of Subtext.

Nothing Evokes Gun Violence and the Worst Parental Fears Like The Sight of An Empty Classroom. But Aside from A Simmering JOSH BROLIN as Grieving Facher Archer Seeing A Vision of A Giant Semi-Automatic in the Night Sky Flashing the Time of The Unexplated Event Associations.

That might not matter to the Core Audience Since the Twisty, Twisted Film Deliveers More of the Unpredictable Narrative Energy that Made Barbarian so bracing. (One of the Stars of that Film Turns Up in a Brief Cameo.) But Weapons IS Far More Consistently Weird than than Scary, WHICH MIGHT Leave Somere Freaks Feeling Unsatisfied.

WHATEVER ITS FLAWS, Weapons unquestionable fortifies the Impression that cregger is a gifted genre Director work with complete Control As He Shifts Between Enveloping Dread and Macabre Humor.

Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) is as surprised as anyne shee shows up at Maybrook Elementary One Morning to Find One of Her 18 Students in Atendance, Alex (Cary Christopher). Both Teacher and Student Are Questioned by Police, As Is Headmaster Marcus (Benedict Wong). Security Camera Footage from the Homes of Missing Kids Reveals Disturbing Images of Them Running Toward, Racher Thanks from Away from Something, But Concrete Leads Are Elusion.

Among the most hostile voices at a town Hall meting at kind of some shocked parents Wanthswers is archer, who insists that the teache must washow be responsible. Once the School Reopens After An Investigation Period, Justine Wants to Resume Teaching, But Marcus Persuades Her to Lie Low Until The Anger Dies Down. That doesn-TTect her from Threatening Phone Calls, Harrassment, The Witch “Witch” Graffitered Across The Side of Her Car in Red Paint and Even Anragged Mother Physical.

Justine becomes a frequent Customer there, hitting the Vodka Hard and Coaxing Her Occasional Hookup, Young Cop Paul (ALDEN EHRENREICH, TERRIFIC), to Slide Off The Wagon. Garner Slyly Plays Up The Character’s Diality, Her Slender Frame Hiding Considerable Strengu and Her Tenderness Toward of the Children She Teaches Contrasted Wound azhhh, Britht, Brittt. UPON HER.

Cregger Effectvely Replays Events from the Days Following the Massa disappeance from Different persons in chapters named for the Characters WHOSE PoINT of VIEW they adapt.

In the “justine” SECTION, she refuses to be intimidated by Marcus’ Warnings, and after Being Forbidden from Talking to Alex, She Follows Him Home Home Where Shest. The Windows Are All Obscured by Newspapers and WHEN NO-ON-ONE Answers the Front Door, She PEERS INSIDE THROUGH A GAP AND STARLED TO SEE WHAT APEARS TO ALEX’S PARESTING SITING Cattonic State.

Chapters Follow Titled “Archer,” “Paul,” “Marcus” and “Alex,” Along with One Called “James.” Played by Austin Abrams with the Wiry Desperation and Cunning of An addict, James is an an unhoused junkie living in a tent in the Woods, who have a nasty brush with Paul. But Who James Learns of the $ 50,000 Reward Being Offer for Information on the Vanisshed Children, He Sees An Opportunity. In the Meantime, He Needs Drug Money Sorts Breaking Into Housses, Including the Home of Alex’s Family.

The less you Know Going Forward the Better, aside from the fact that people are Driven by Dark Forces to Acts of Extreme Violence, The MOST Semingly Benign of theMing the most brutal. Justine and Archer Become Unlikely Allies Once Her Being Attacked and Their Amateur Sleuthing Leads Them in the Right Direction. Only in the Penultimate Chapter Does a New Character Appear, Who Shads a Whole New Light on What’s HapPening, If Not Who. There’s A Bizarre Lynchian Quality to the Climactic Events Even if Cregger’s Fondness for Grotesque Comedy Takes The Edge Off The Terror.

Expecting An Audence to Be Spooned by A Sinister Figure Who’s Like Phyllis Diller Crossed With Friar Tuck and Amy Sedaris’ Jerri Blank On Strangers with Candy is a tall order. But The Movie is Never Dull or Cripplingly Silly and It Looks Sensational. Dynamic Cinematographer Seiple’s Visuals Are Loaded with Rich Textures and Sinuous Movement. The Extension Use of Practical Effects Over CG is Another Asset.

Cregger’s Confident Direction and the Maniacal Commitment of the Actor in that Late-Arrival Role Alev The Comedy to Co-Exist with Horrific Violence and escalating Suspense Lord of the Flies. It’s as Explosively Bloody, Visserally Charged and MasterFully Choregraphed a Denoument as that of Any Horror Movie in Recent Memory.

What does the ominously glawing blue triangle in the Title Graphic Mean? Who Knows, Beyond Generic Occultism. But that’s Indicative of the Lack of Depth that Holds Cregger Back, Suggesting that A More Psychologically Probing Co-Writer MIGHT ELEVATE HIM INTO The Ranks of the Great Horrr.