The Kids Aren’t Alright

I heard a lot about Weapons when the film came out back in August. It was creepy, scary, a real thrill ride. I didn’t hear much about the plot and, in fact, didn’t really see anything that went into detail about it. That’s cool, usually, because it means that it’s a film with solid twists that can stand well on its own without needing to have everything spoiled. I can absolutely appreciate a film like that. What I knew was that it had solid critical praise and, at some point, when I had a chance to see it I’d get it up and give the film a whirl.

Seeing it wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked since I live in a small town and we only get half the films that come out normally. If it isn’t a massive blockbuster or a family film, the little three-screener we have in town usually doesn’t get it. I was honestly shocked when we got Sinners, although that film blew up and caught the zeitgeist, so I guess it wasn’t a complete surprise. Weapons not getting a showing near me also seemed fair, though. Despite a large and well known cast, this film didn’t catch on quite as big and didn’t have the same cultural impact. Hard to get that into a small little theater in the middle of nowhere.

But once the film hit streaming, I had no excuse anymore. So I popped the film up, sat back, and let it play and… actually, I’m not certain I really understood the hype. There are moments that are scary, and there’s plenty of creepy scenes, but the whole of the film doesn’t actually manage to stand up to the hype. This is a film that works better as a mystery (as in you don’t know where it’s going or what’s happening). But as a cohesive, connected tale, Weapons honestly falls apart right when it should be getting good. The film has pieces that work, but the sum of those pieces is not nearly as good.

The film is about Justine Gandy’s 3rd Grade Class. One day during the school year, seventeen of the eighteen children from the class all disappear. Only one child shows up for class the next day, and when the police go back and check cameras around the neighborhoods they find that all the children ran out of their houses at 2:17 AM and vanished into the night, leaving no sign of where they went. Various people in town have suspicions, like Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the boys, who thinks Justine knows more than she’s saying, but the police have no leads, no clues, and no idea what to do next.

That’s the setup for the film, but Weapons doesn’t simply follow Justine through her life after the kids disappear. Instead the film bounces around, taking shots from various characters’ points of view, following each through their lives before, at, and after the day of the incident to see what they were doing and, more importantly, what the disappearance of the kids meant to them. And when it’s finally revealed what happened, and why the kids all ran off into the night, it changes everything we thought we knew about the whole incident.

The issue is that the twist of the film, which I won’t spoil, actually ruins the movie as a whole. Here’s why: the film opens with Justine and it follows her life right up until someone she knows comes running up to her and tries to kill her. The assumption is that she’s somehow tied into everything. That assumption falls apart eventually (for reasons we won’t spoil as well), but once we’re done with Justine’s story up to that point we then move over to Archer and follow him, letting his story color what we already knew from Justine’s plot. Then we bounce to the next character, and then the next, and each of these people colors more details for scenes we’ve already seen before. They all add shading to the plot that’s building as a whole.

And none of it matters. I really do not want to spoil any of this but what I can say is that what happened with the kids, why they went missing and what it means, has absolutely no bearing on any of the characters we were following when the movie started. You come in for these characters, follow them through their lives, wonder how they all connect and why following these people matters and then, when the twist happens, you learn that none of it does. The people you were following have no consequence on the story up to that point and, in the end, we could have followed just about any two people in the lead up to the twist and they could have had the same impact on the story. Weapons gets you invested in characters that don’t really matter at all.

It’s a really weird choice to make, and it leads me to think that the creator of the film, Zach Cregger (who wrote, directed, and co-produced the film), had a really good idea for a story hook but didn’t really know how to give the film an ending. Don’t get me wrong, the hook is great. Seventeen kids from a single 3rd Grade Class go missing, and it leaves the town shattered. That’s a fantastic story setup, the kind of plot device Stephen KingRising to fame with the release of his first book, Carrie, Stephen King is one of the most prolific, and most successful, American authors (in any genre, not just horror). would write and it would keep his readers enthralled. As frequently happens with King’s stories, though, Weapons has no clue how to get to its ending without doing something big, dumb, stupid, and out of left field.

The problem really stems from the fact that Weapons sets itself up as a mystery. You want to know what happened to the kids, why they ran out into the night, and how they disappeared. You follow each of these characters as a way to get clues, building a tapestry of them to help you solve the mystery. But when the twist is revealed and it shows that nothing we just watched actually has any clues to the mystery it betrays the whole setup. It’s not that Justine or Archer or any of the other characters we get are bad, it’s just that they don’t actually matter so you’re left wondering why we were following them at all.

Still not spoiling anything specific but the last act of the film feels like it came from a different film altogether. It comes out of nowhere, recontextualizes everything as if it’s trying to retcon its own story, and then pretends like this was the film we were watching all along. It’s a different kind of act, with different horror vibes, working on a different wavelength, and it feels completely out of place in Weapons. It’s like if M. Night Shyamalan decided that to make the twist for his next film he’d splice on the last act of a totally different movie he worked on (which, now that I think about it, was effectively the ending of The Village, and it was awful). That’s how bad this twist seems in the context of Weapons.

Making this difference even more stark, the tonal shift of the last act goes straight to Evil DeadStarted as a horror cheapie to get the foot in the door for three aspiring filmmakers -- Raimi, Tappert, and Campbell -- Evil Dead grew to have a life of its own, as well as launching the "splatstick" genre of horror-comedy. levels of gore and violence. It’s actually comical, especially in the last action sequence. We go from a dark and moody thriller into a comedic horror sequence that feels like Giallo mashed against Keystone Cops. It’s amusing, and fun to watch, but, again, it feels like it comes from a different movie, not the one we just watched for the last hour-plus. I’m not sure what the thought process was here, but it doesn’t work.

It’s sad because for the first couple of acts Weapons is pretty good. Maybe not the best creepy, town-set thriller, but there’s enough tension and mystery that I was enjoying where the film was going. But once the reveal sets in, everything about the film falls apart. Weapons is a solid small town thriller betrayed by a terrible ending, and that ending is bad enough that it ruins the experience of the film. The first two acts are enjoyable and interesting, but the ending ruins it all to the point that I just can’t recommend this film. If you want to see how an ending can ruin a movie, watch Weapons. Otherwise, go see just about anything else instead.