Weapons Review

“This is a true story that happened in my town. So, this one Wednesday is like a normal day for the whole school, but today was different. Every other class had all their kids, but Mrs. Gandy's room was totally empty. And do you know why? Because the night before, at 2:17 in the morning, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs, and into the dark... and they never came back.” – Narrator

You might well think that I’ve given the entire film away with that quote, but it’s absolutely no spoiler. That’s the opening narration. As ever, my anticipation for this movie was based solely on what I’d seen in the trailer, and I had assumed that the crux of the story was the missing children – because as far back as that first trailer, we’ve known that practically an entire elementary school class goes missing. It’s even written on the film poster.

But no, the film is far cleverer than that. The missing children are only the setup. Their disappearance is literally the first thing we become aware of. The actual story being told is that of those left behind.

In essence, Weapons has a very similar structure to the Oscar winning Crash (2005) which is a firm favourite of mine. In that, we see the aftermath of a road traffic accident with the story being that of the different people involved, and how they got to be on that road at that time to collide with each other.

Weapons takes this format and in an episodic format, we follow the events in the lives of Justine Gandy, the teacher whose class goes missing (Julia Garner, last seen as the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: First Steps), Archer - one of the parents (Josh Brolin, Thanos himself), the school principal (Benedict Wong, – seen as Dr Strange’s assistant, Wong – yes, this is beginning to look like a Marvel reunion.) Alex, the only child in the class not to go missing (Cary Christopher, who I thought had no Marvel credit, but then I saw he had a credit in the animated Spider-Noir show.) The stories of these characters intersect to…well, go and see the movie for yourself. You won’t regret it.

The movie has a definite Stephen King vibe to it, even though he had nothing to do with the production. The whole thing just needs to be set in Castle Rock and you have the greatest Stephen King movie that Stephen King never wrote – and as a devoted Stephen King reader, those are some pretty big words, but they’re justified.

Despite the extraordinary event that kicks off the film, the place, the people – they’re so ordinary, so easily identifiable. But there’s of course an undercurrent of something out of the ordinary, which writer/director Zach Cregger expertly increases in volume subtly throughout the films 2hr 8min running time bringing the film to a satisfying closure.

It’s unusual for a horror movie to run this long, but trust me, not one second is wasted. The sense of menace is palpable, and the gore, though sparingly used is effective and shocking.

What was particularly satisfying on the opening night screening I attended was the sheer number of people in attendance. The screening room was packed, proving once again that put on a decent horror movie with no online spoilers and the audience will flock in.

Needless to say, I’m loving this new golden age of horror!

Rob Rating = 9