Weapons
Director: Zach Cregger
Cast: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin and Amy Madigan.
Warner Brothers
5/5
The horror genre has firmly settled into the witchcraft trend — and Baba Yaga would approve.
With hits like Hereditary and The Witch cementing their place in the genre’s pantheon, it’s no surprise that Weapons can also stake a claim in that haunted museum on the hill.
Its vignettes follow several characters directly affected by the sudden disappearance of 17 Grade 5 students from Ms. Justine Gandy’s class. Only one child, Alex, remains.
Several parents turn Gandy into their punching bag, convinced she knows more than she’s letting on. The pressure drives her to drink, but her own curiosity eventually pushes her into an investigation, pulling the film into the world of procedural mystery, akin to Longlegs or The Autopsy of Jane Doe. A string of uncanny events then pairs her with one of the parents who initially labelled her the prime suspect.
Weapons is an original treat, blending wry humour with jarring, sinister moments that will leave cinephiles unsettled.
It’s almost Shakespearean in its rhythm, weaving scenes meant to be dark, macabre and unsafe with bursts of gallows humour. From the germophobic officer Paul and his bad day courtesy of the drug-addled transient James, to the school principal Marcus and his secretary’s first encounter with Gladys, these moments should inspire creeping dread — yet you find yourself giggle-snorting.
It’s much like the drunken porter from that Scottish play. He complains about his job, compares Castle Inverness to hell, then casually admits Macduff and Lennox so they can discover King Duncan’s fate.
Such moments are meant to distract, keeping you unaware of the pall about to fall over the sleepy, fictional town of Maybrook, Illinois. And they’re meant to make those real moments of horror all the more traumatic.
Where you expect a jump scare, there isn’t one. But when you settle into a film-watching stupor, you’re jolted by a Joker-esque vision, muttering “What the fuck?!” just like Josh Brolin after his uncanny nightmare.
Weapons has the makings of a horror classic because it takes the ordinary and flips it in pure Stephen King fashion. Instead of small-town Maine, we have a midwestern American community in pieces.
The safety of children is a hair-trigger topic in today’s world. The right touts family values and indulges in Helen Lovejoy pearl-clutching, while the left talks a strong gun control game but remains milquetoast in enacting policy.
Layer in a Baba Yaga or Muma Pădurii-inspired antagonist — out of time, with archaic references to consumption and Marcus’ Oregon Trail quip — and the spell is complete.
Baba Yaga, from Slavic lore, lives in a house with chicken legs. She attacks only when people visit without offering a worthy reason. In Weapons, the newspapered windows, grim countenance and garish appearance all scream Baba Yaga. Muma Pădurii, from Romanian folklore, kidnaps children lost in the woods and is thought to have inspired Hansel and Gretel.
These folk tales feed modern horror endlessly — and it’s a delight to see them reborn.
Of course, a Grimm tale rarely offers a saccharine Hollywood ending. Nor would we want it to. Those under the sway of darker forces are never quite the same. Shared trauma changes us. Some stay silent, others can’t stop talking, and some will go to great lengths to bury the truth — a habit all too familiar in today’s geopolitical climate.