At The Movies: Missing-children mystery Weapons hits a horror bullseye

Weapons (M18)

128 minutes, opens on Aug 7
★★★★☆

The story: In an ordinary American town, something bizarre has happened. In the middle of one night, 17 children wake up, run out of their homes and disappear. Each one is a student from the class taught by Justine Gandy (Julia Garner). Only she and one student, Alex (Cary Christopher), have not gone missing. Parents like Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) are distraught and desperate for answers.

Weapons’ early scenes play out like a psychological drama – the kids vanish overnight, a town is in shock and in mourning, and the audience is introduced to characters dealing with the fallout of the event.

It is all reminiscent of what happens after a school shooting. Alcohol, failed marriages, anger and blaming become the norm, and especially infuriating – and blackly funny – is the soothing psychobabble spouted by professionals offering insurance-mandated mental health options.

But as with American writer-director Zach Cregger’s previous film Barbarian (2022), the movie becomes something else altogether at the midpoint.

The threads of suspense set up in the first act solidify into a story that is as thrilling as it is unapologetically gruesome, delivered in a style that marries Stephen King-style suburban creepiness with the aesthetics of a slasher movie.

Cregger is the new kid on the block, joining the likes of Jordan Peele (Get Out, 2017; Nope, 2022) and Coralie Fargeat (Revenge, 2017; The Substance, 2024) in the ranks of writer-directors who deliver character-driven stories that shock and scare.

Garner is excellent as the young teacher put through the emotional wringer. Like the main character in a Coen brothers movie, she suffers the twin injustices of being falsely accused, while those who claim to be on her side gaslight her at every turn, replacing her reality with a version that makes their own lives more comfortable.

The story is told through chapters that replay events through the eyes of different characters. But the format is not quite the one used most famously in the Japanese classic Rashomon (1950).

The unfolding events in Weapons are real and factual, but each new perspective unravels the mystery further.

The climax arrives, as happens in many good horror movies, with a bonkers intensity that feels satisfying and fully deserved. Cregger handles the mayhem without sacrificing the sense of mystery that precedes it.

Hot take: When a suburban chiller turns into a gruesome Stephen King-meets-slasher masterpiece, Weapons delivers its killer blow.