Writer/director Zach Creeger (of Barbarian fame and coproducer of the clever Companion) has a new one out, called Weapons, which is armed to become another horror, cult favorite, with a thick, mysterious cloak and a supernatural undercurrent that recalls such fairy tales as "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and "Hansel and Gretel," with traces of Village of the Damned, Weird Woman, Burn, Witch, Burn!, The Blair Witch Project and a startling comeuppance that will stick with one for an assured, long time.
To reveal the details of that comeuppance would spoil the movie, but its publicized premise is wide open to embrace: Seventeen of eighteen, grammar-school classmates depart their Pennsylvania homes at the same time (2:17 am), with their arms spread in airplane-like emulation, all disappearing from sight. Where did they go and why?
Their teacher, Julia Garner's alcoholic Justine Gandy, ends up the prime suspect, due to her overriding link to the youngsters. She ultimately teams with one of her opposers, Josh Brolin's obsessive father, Archer Graff, to unravel the matter. Others enter the plot, including Benedict Wong's Principal Miller, June Diane Raphael's Donna Morgan, Alden Ehrenreich's Paul Morgan, Toby Huss' Ed Locke, Austin Abrams' James, Justin Long's Gary, Sara Paxton's Erica, Clayton Farris' Terry and the class' eighteenth child, Cary Christopher's Alex Lilly, whose parents are played by Whitmer Thomas and Callie Schuttera.
One has to wonder what Alex might know (if only in that he's been "spared"), but perhaps his alleged, great-aunt, Amy Madigan's Gladys, holds the key. Gladys is, after all, an odd bird (rather Baby Jane-ish in looks, if the truth be known, with a little of Nicolas Cage's Longlegs thrown in), and Madigan gives one heck of a tour-de-force performance to drive this peculiar persona home, being both scary and fun through the narrative's progression.
To embellish its warped, fairy-tale quality, Weapons is interlocked by six, novel-like portions, with one phasing into the other: a trait of Creeger's Barbarian and for that matter, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. The shrewd approach emboldens the scenario's intrigue (and moments of surprise), drawing one in to pull away its layers. Once those layers are discarded, the movie's metaphorical title, which offers a prominent, rifle image at one point, matched by George A. Romero's consumerism motif and a pervading, parasitic catalyst, become bewitchingly clear (well, more or less, but that some ambiguity remains is okay, for it'll prompt spirited discussions for years).
Even with its interpretive insinuations, I wouldn't call Weapons complicated or complex on the whole. It's really quite basic on the surface, but its raw-nerve construction makes it stand out. Creeger is an extraordinary writer/director, who has that wonderful, contemplative (if not melancholic) knack for taking old, horror tropes and spinning them with originality. A successful result comes from the manner in which a tale is told. Creeger proved it before, and with Weapons proves it again.
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