Fear without purpose, style without heart. Review of the film Weapons

Weapons was destined to be a hit from the start. Zach Cregger's script was so hyped that Netflix, New Line Cinema, TriStar Pictures, and Universal Pictures were all in a bidding war for the opportunity to make the film. The success of Barbarian further confirmed Cregger's ability to craft unique stories that also made a good box office. Right now, Weapons is basking in rave reviews from the press and audiences. But it's likely that many reviewers simply couldn't admit to themselves that the film's story is a collection of ideas without a clear axis. And it ends with one of the most disappointing endings in modern horror.

In the small town of Maybrook, an event occurred that shook all its residents. One night, at exactly 2:17 AM, 17 children voluntarily woke up, got out of bed and ran away from their homes. Only one child remained from the entire class, and she knew nothing about the event. The teacher of this class, Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), became the main suspect, but she also knew nothing about the disappearance. The investigation did not lead to anything, so the school, from which almost an entire class disappeared, is planning to reopen. However, the shadow of the tragedy still hangs over everyone in Maybrook, and the missing children can become a catalyst for both larger and personal changes in society.

Weapons is intriguing with just the synopsis, that's something you can't take away from it. The atmosphere of tragedy and eerie mystery is what makes you want to watch the film in the first place. But if you think back to Barbarian, you can guess that Kregger will once again want to play with the audience's feelings, the structure of the story, and the themes underlying the script. And he does it in the most provocative way possible.

Because it turns out that Weapons is not even horror in the broad sense of the word. You won't have to be scared that often, but there are a few good scenes in the film that will make you feel almost primal horror. Cragger takes a strange, unique event and uses it as a catalyst that reveals the true essence of the residents of Maybrook. The result is almost a kind of anthology that touches on a lot of provocative questions.

School shootings, parental control, rethinking loss, manipulation of the public perception of certain events, interaction between children, parents and complete strangers – these are not even half of the topics that Weapons touches on in one way or another. Almost every next scene in the film adds some new element to the overall picture, which makes you want to think about what you saw, discuss it with other people for a very long time. However, Kregger's work cannot be called a puzzle film either.

And therein lies the first of the film's two huge problems. The author knows exactly what he wants to say. But he doesn't understand at all what he wants to be.

This is not an anthology about small-town life, because instead of "life" we get only a few characters who gradually move the story forward. For entertaining horror, the film has too little dynamics and interaction with fear at an accessible level. For "progressive" horror, there are too many understandable things. Is it satire? But there is no object of ridicule. A social metaphor? Its message is lost among the multitude of meanings that cinema can generate.

It seems that Kreger caught the vertigo from the success of Barbarian and released an even more provocative and incomprehensible picture. Even the very name Weapon is interpreted differently in individual scenes. On the one hand, we have interesting thoughts about the manipulation of large and small facts, when even the disappearance of children becomes just an opportunity for someone to get rich or another item on the to-do list. On the other hand, there is a scene in the film with a huge automatic rifle hovering over a house - and this is a contender for one of the most vulgar and excessive moments in the cinema of 2025.

I have nothing against complex films, even if they don't give clear answers. That's why one of my favorite films is Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid, which, by the way, was received much cooler than Weapons. It also experiments with structure and has a huge layer of ideas, but everything comes down to a finale, if not a pleasant one, then an unusual one.

And now we come to the second, more important problem of Weapons. It is its ending, which destroys everything that the story has so diligently built up to this point.

I won't spoil it and will limit myself to general words. However, the final act of the film takes all the worst from horror films and just not very good cinema. It nullifies entire chapters, and the question arises why Cregger created them at all. It uses ideas that were outdated, probably, in the early 1990s. And the worst thing is that it gives answers that kill the entire horror component of the film.

I'll say it again and again: stories in which fear is the main element should not have answers. At least Stephen King once said this. Real horror will always live in your mind, where no living soul can climb. And various explanations are just an attempt by the authors to put everything on the shelves, which always feels artificial. By the way, this is exactly why Grave Encounters is a good movie and a modern classic, and Grave Encounters 2 is an unnecessary sequel, which also destroys the charm of the original.

Yes, Weapons does not directly explain everything. But its ending makes it even worse: even the available answers are enough to make all desire to fumble in the meanings of the film disappear. However, it is difficult to argue that on a visual and superficial level in the third act everything is in order. Perhaps the provocative theme of child cruelty and its presentation in the film shocked critics and viewers too much.

Weapons is my personal disappointment of the year so far. Inflated expectations also played a role, but what I saw seemed to completely contradict the development of modern horror films in a wide variety of subgenres and settings. It is either a frank provocation, and then yes, I was a fool and behaved. Or a complete farce, which for some reason the mass audience cannot see through.

Although "for some reason" is a completely unfortunate word. Because at the level of execution, style and approaches, Weapons is one of the best films of recent years. It's not even about horror, but about cinema in general. This is a film thought out to the smallest detail, which in some sections experiments with genres and even the pace of directing. And it won't work to call it completely senseless.

There is a category of films that sacrifice ideas for the sake of a good wrapper. They are also called "style over meaning." Weapons is a unique case in such a review. The film has both style and meaning, and the problems are hidden so deeply that not everyone can see them. However, these problems touch the heart and soul of the story, so if you see them, you will not be able to forget them.

And to put it briefly and prosaically, Weapons can serve as an additional reminder that excessive hype ruins everything.