Weapons is, I think, a horror movie that we’re going to be talking about for decades to come.
Which doesn’t come as that much of a surprise, given the credentials it boasted before it so much as hit screens. Director Zach Cregger’s directorial debut Barbarian rightly received a whole lot of rave reviews when it hit screens in 2022, and his sophomore effort here has the cast and clout to prove it. Starring Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, and Alden Ehrenreich (amongst others), it received a hefty marketing push from distributors Warner Bros in the months leading up to its release, and, by the time it hit screens last month, it was up there with the most anticipated releases of the year, horror or otherwise.
And if you’re wondering if it lives up to the hype, the answer is: yeah, it does. Following the small community surrounding a local elementary school after (almost) an entire classroom of students go missing at once, Weapons feels like the best Stephen King novel that King himself never wrote. Essentially a collection of overlapping short stories following the various members of the community dealing with the enormity of the loss, it’s got this dreamlike, eerie tone that’s packed with iconic images and genuinely fantastic scares – Cregger’s got an eye for visuals that are unsettling not just for their gory or gruesome quality (though he’s got plenty of that too), but for their simple sense of pure offness. The opening moments of the children fleeing their homes, arms spread wide as they run through the empty streets, already feels era-defining and iconic, and it’s barely a couple of months old, you know?
And speaking of iconic, I simply cannot get any further into this review without talking to you a little about Amy Madigan as Gladys, the antagonist of the movie and insta-horror-villain-legend. I’ve been a huge fan of Madigan since I saw her in Streets of Fire and later in my beloved Carnivale, and what this role offers her finally feels like the match to her talents I’ve been waiting for. Her weaponized kookiness, the utterly disarming nature of her weird aunt-ery, lands her in deliciously uneasy territory somewhere between horror and comedy and I, for one, can’t wait to attend the next ten Halloween parties in this costume in her honour.
But, really, Gladys just makes up a small part of a brilliant ensemble that fills out this world in deft strokes – the combination of excellent performances (particularly from Garner and Brolin) matched with a strong script that’s never afraid to make these characters unlikeable and flawed sidesteps the easy notions of good and evil, worthy and unworthy that so many horror films succumb to. The framing of the story with a child’s narration lends the whole thing a kind of fairytale feel that papers over a few of the more abstract cracks, hitting this tone that feels as much like small town folklore as it does a part of the modern horror canon.
But, for all its brilliance, I think what will ultimately cement weapons as a classic in decades to come is just how much of it there is to sift through, and how many angles there are through which to interpret this movie. Themes of addiction, obsession, trauma, and child abuse reoccur across the various chapters and focal characters, and I’ve already seen a half-dozen different interpretations that are pretty well-supported by the film’s contents. Cregger has dodged being too specific on explaining what he thinks the film is about, and, as a result, I think it’s going to age really well – it’s a rich text that will evolve with its audience and come to mean different things in years to come. The best thing a movie like this can be is malleable, and Weapons is exactly that, while never feeling deliberately evasive in the process.
Weapons is another in a long line of brilliant mainstream horror movies this year – from Sinners to Bring Her Back, it’s been a treat to be a fan of the genre these last eight months or so. I would love to hear what you make of the film below, including your interpretations and takeaways, so hop into the comments and let’s rhapsodize all things Gladys!
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Deadline)
No But Listen 