‘Weapons’: Familiar chill down the spine

Imagine a suburb in Pennsylvania, USA, that is both asleep and violently awake. At exactly 2.17 am, all but one child of Class III rise from their beds — not walk, not stumble, but rise — hovering like robot-zombies summoned by some creator, before vanishing into the night.

‘Weapons’ opens on this absurd, implausibly believable fever dream, and clings to that rhythmless dread with very few mercy breaks.

Horror, as a genre, is tricky water to tread — after all, it centres on making the unwatchable watchable; on disturbing viewers just enough to get the endorphins flowing, but not so much that they click away.

In this follow-up to his much-loved debut ‘Barbarian’, Zach Cregger masters — nay, embodies — this eerie balance with a precision so uncharacteristically sterile for the genre.

Cregger does not reinvent the proverbial wheel of horror, but pads the film with so much of the genre’s tried-and-tested that you, like a train-wreck gawker, can’t help but look straight into the disturbing absurdity.

Sadly, however, as the film progresses, the narrative structure dwindles and dwindles, until Cregger is gluing padding on top of existing padding, making the pay-offs effective, yes, but also shallow and non-resonant.

The mystery centres on the disappearance of 17 children, as anxious parents and clueless cops vicariously infuse anxiety. The story fractures across a gallery of townies with private damage: Julia Garner’s Justine Gandy, the class teacher, is a well-meaning maniac who copes by haunting liquor shops and stalking people. Josh Brolin’s Archer Graff, domineering but visibly crumbling, is a parent who appoints himself investigator.

Elsewhere, morally grey cop Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich) grapples with his own issues, spotlighting a side arc that deserves its flowers. In his interactions with homeless crack-head James Anthony (Austin Abrams, of ‘Euphoria’ fame), he liberally assaults the junkie and tampers with the dashcam: this brief foray into American police brutality the film could have done without, but it is these small arcs of stubborn conviction that gift it a more grounded, all-encompassing backdrop, making the horror feel more bone-chilling.

Which is perhaps why the cheap scares and the anticipation work, despite the film leaning on tropes as common in Hollywood as seedy producers.

From clocks freezing at a particular time to the film opening with a young, creepy girl’s narration, ‘Weapons’ offers virtually nothing fresh. It is, however, hearty, palatable, and — at times — over-stimulating.

What is easily the film’s most impressive feature is its unconventional structure. All the seriousness is hoarded in the first half, until a disgustingly saturated Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) barges in with peculiar hair and smeared lipstick. From there, ‘Weapons’ time-travels between genres, injecting comedy like a brainfreeze.

As seen in ‘Inventing Anna’, too, Garner’s ritual of acting is nonchalantly meticulous. Madigan’s excellent portrayal makes you want to abandon the screen, while Paul’s ‘punch-ability’ stands testament to Ehrenreich’s talent.

The film may well become a cult favourite, not just because Warner Bros’ marketing budget for it looked capable of running a small European country.

If you want raw, sleepover-ready horror, ‘Weapons’ fits the bill. But if you fancy narratives with an actual narrative, you might want to stay armed elsewhere.