Weapons turns our deepest anxieties into a potent horror masterpiece

Zach Cregger’s first major film Barbarian was tense and frightening, but it was also infused with a healthy dose of absurdity. The movie’s twisted sense of humor made it easier to stomach its grotesque violence and a bit more difficult to anticipate how its unhinged story would unfold. But Barbarian also worked surprisingly well as a commentary on who really benefits from the redevelopment of decaying cities.

Barbarian’s unpredictable tonal shifts and impressive production value made it feel like Cregger had captured lightning in a bottle — the kind that is often difficult to replicate. But with his new thriller, Weapons, Cregger proves that he is more than capable of weaving tales of suspense without an overreliance on the element of surprise. Like Barbarian, Weapons’ visuals are as arresting as its story is disturbing. But the new film works much harder to show you the meaning behind its stomach-turning scares.

Though Barbarian wasn’t exactly subtle, Weapons pretty immediately establishes its themes about what motivates mob mentalities and mass hysteria. And yet, you would be hard-pressed to guess what the movie has in store. The film opens on Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), an enthusiastic third grade teacher with a deep affection for her students. She’s kind, patient, and attentive to their needs — especially when she sees that they’re dealing with emotional difficulties.

Justine’s care goes a bit far for some, though. Principal Andrew Marcus (Benedict Wong) tells her that she’s not supposed to offer students rides home when their parents don’t show up after school gets out. But she’s the type of person who does it anyway because she wants to make sure that her students are safe. Whatever school board policies Justine might have broken in the past, parents like Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) don’t seem all that concerned because she’s never done anything that would suggest she harmed them. That is until every single one of Justine’s students — save for a quiet boy named Alex (Cary Christopher) — disappears in the middle of the night. All the kids from other classrooms are accounted for. The entire town panics and suspects that Justine has done something nefarious to the children.

Cregger spells out just enough of what’s going on to make the movie read, on one level, as a dark allegory for the devastation caused by school shootings. Though people have questions about where Justine’s students went, everyone knows that all of the children got up at 2:17 in the morning and dashed away from their houses. Police captain Ed (Toby Huss) can’t explain the why of it, but he and the parents know it’s true because multiple Ring cameras recorded footage of the children running into the night.

The inexplicability of the situation makes it hard for the parents not to see the police as incompetent and Justine as a predator who should be in jail. But one of Weapons’ more impressive feats is the way it builds on that contentious dynamic to make a point about how communities often conjure up convenient boogeymen to blame, rather than confronting the things that actually endanger children. That feels like one of the bigger ideas Cregger is trying to get at through Weapons’ Rashomon-inspired structure, which revisits a series of key moments from different characters’ perspectives. At first, suspicion of Justine feels plausible given the circumstances. But as the film shifts between points of view, it’s clear that Cregger wants you to do some critical thinking about what kinds of people tend to be labeled as threats to children and why that is.

Cregger also wants to scare the absolute shit out of you, which is why so much of Weapons’ pacing is oriented toward suspense that builds to moments of gruesome madness. Though the movie is peppered with more than a few solid jump scares, its most potent horror tricks are actually cinematographer Larkin Seiple’s unnerving shots of the missing children prancing down the street with their arms outstretched like they mean to take flight. The haunting strangeness of those visuals is a constant reminder that something deeply messed up is going on in the town, and you’re left to guess exactly what that is right up until the movie’s rollercoaster of a final act, an audacious conclusion to one of the year’s most unsettling and satisfying films.

Weapons also stars Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Amy Madigan, June Diane Raphael, Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera, and Clayton Farris. The movie hits theaters on August 8th.