Weapons is a Mysterious and Thrilling Wild Ride

At 2:17 a.m. 17 children ran into the night air with arms outstretched seemingly vanishing into thin air.  It turns out all these children belonged to the same classroom – all but one.  It is this one child who appears to hold the key to where the children and have gone and why. What was it about this one classroom? Is it a government thing?  Is it a prank?

Directed by Zach Cregger, this idea baked from several amalgamations of true crime stories, but was inspired by the unexpected death of one of Cregger’s childhood best friends.

Weapons is an interestingly different type of horror/thriller.  For 12 minutes, seven lead characters get their own chapter contributing to possible answers around the mystery of these missing children.

The casting and performances are stellar, with the standouts being Amy Madigan, Josh Brolin and Julia Garner. Garner portrays a quiet vulnerability with a hidden survival instinct that serves her well throughout this film.  As the tortured schoolteacher Justine Gandy, her genuine concern for her students is what leads her gut instinct into discovering the mysterious whereabouts of her classroom.

Josh Brolin, as the angst ridden, forlorn father to one of the missing children, will leave no stone unturned until he finds his son. It’s heart wrenching to watch and experience this world from his point of view from beginning to end.  Brolin encapsulates every drop of emotion and horror with absolute vigor.

But it is an almost unrecognizable Amy Madigan and amazingly gifted Alden Ehrenreich who steal the show as the crazy witchy aunt and ambitious cop. Both actors inhabit these roles with such vitality rooted in realism that it makes it hard to turn away from the screen.

Weapons is a wild ride for sure, but a ride riddled in questions around the occult, the educational system for our children and how easily law enforcement enforces a gross misuse of power whenever they feel threatened. Horror, thriller or not, this is definitively a film that will have you asking questions long after the credits have rolled.