Naruto Runners

Film: Weapons
Format: Streaming video from HBO Max on Fire!

We’re at the time of year where people are starting to put together their year-end movie lists, both in general and in terms of specific genres. For some people, it’s also the time of year to put together lists of movies they were disappointed in. For whatever reason, it’s become quite trendy to list Zach Creggar’s Weapons on the list of disappointments for a lot of horror movie bloggers and commentators. I have to think that while some of that is likely honest, some of it genuinely feels like rage farming. Weapons goes in an unusual direction, certainly, and it might not be what people expected, but the seeming outrage I’ve seen from a couple of streamers really feels unbalanced.

The basic story is that one day, in the town of Maybrook, PA, 17 of the 18 children in the third grade classroom of Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) don’t show up for school. Only Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher) shows up for class. The 17 children are missing; parents of some of the houses check on their cameras and all of them confirm that at 2:17 in the morning, their children got up, left the house, and ran out into the street, all running off in the same direction, arms wide, not unlike Naruto.

Naturally, the town is in an immediate uproar, and who wouldn’t be? And, just as naturally, Justine Gandy is accused of being the cause of the problem. She’s suspended from teaching and very quickly gives in to her alcoholism, and also rekindles a former affair with married police officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich). While she appears to be falling into dissolution herself, she is still concerned for the well-being of Alex, so she heads to his house to check on him. What she finds is the windows covered in newspaper and Alex’s parents sitting catatonic on the couch. She decides to wait and falls asleep in her car, and while she is asleep, Alex’s mother leaves the house, enters the car, and cuts off a piece of Justine’s hair.

The reality of Weapons is that I don’t want to spoil the film. It’s told in episodes, each covering a particular character, and in each of these episodes, we get more and more of the tale and see more and more behind what is happening. What we are going to learn is that the source of what is happening is Gladys (Amy Madigan), the aunt of Alex. We’re going to also learn that she has coercive power over the people in her immediate circle. That’s going to include Alex’s parents and eventually some other people including Paul, a heroin addict named James (Austin Abrams), and some others.

Weapons is very much a piece of folk horror disguised to look like something different. It wasn’t until the film was well over halfway done that I realized what I was looking at was something that wanted to tap into a sort of ancient magic in a very new set of clothing. It’s incredibly effective because of this. The reality of what is happening makes perfect horror movie sense once you get the idea of the true evil that we are dealing with, but it’s so well hidden that it’s unlikely you’ll get there on your own.

It would be easy to look at this cast list and think that Julia Garner and Josh Brolin (one of the parents of one of the missing kids) are the stars of this, and in a lot of ways they are. But it’s Amy Madigan who is the true star of Weapons. She is barely recognizable as the hag she portrays in all of the guises she appears in. She likely won’t get any recognition come awards season beyond the more obscure ones (genre, and all), but she deserves a great deal of the praise for making this all work.

I think the movie works, and it has in general gotten solid reviews. And it should. It’s a smart film that doesn’t assume that the audience is dumb. There’s some truth to the idea that horror audiences need to be smarter than the average when the movie is a good one and the director puts their trust in the audience. Creggar has done that here. Not a great deal is telegraphed to the audience, and we need to pay attention to follow the story where it goes.

Do I have a complaint? The end is a bit unsatisfying if only because it doesn’t reach a definitive conclusion. Still, that’s not a reason not to watch.

Why to watch Weapons: Witchery and folk horror is always better than expected.
Why not to watch: Evidently, if you’re a horror blogger looking for clicks, it’s disappointing.