At 2:17 a.m., 17 children vanish and from that moment on, “Weapons” establishes itself as a horror film defined by dread and precision.
Unlike my “Nosferatu” review, the director Zach Cregger has given me a better perspective on films. As someone with a deep love for literature and film, especially the scary ones, this film was an unforgettable experience.
There are three important elements in a film that I personally love to look at: pacing, plot, sequence and sound. Especially in a movie theater, it’s not just the visuals of the film that matter; it’s how the sound of a film can make a person feel.
For me, the most memorable experience I could have in a movie theater was the film “Nope” (2022) by my favorite director, Jordan Peele.
I’ll never forget the scene where the people were abducted and sucked into an alien spaceship, hearing their screams and the impact of their bodies being pulled inside the craft. It wasn’t only scary, it was the type of discomfort that makes the film brilliant.
My friend and I left the theater with the feeling of being abducted by aliens ourselves. That’s the type of experience that only happens in a cinema, not on a phone or average streaming. The point of this? There’s a difference: some films leave an imprint on viewers like “Nope” (2022). Others, like “Nosferatu” (2024), leave viewers wondering if they just sat through two hours of vampire fetish cosplay. “Weapons” creates its own unique impact, even dropping Easter eggs to the director’s debut film, “Barbarian” (2022).
The film opens up with the song, “Beware of Darkness,” by George Harrison, a bizarre but perfect choice for a song that could have been used in a horror movie.
The scene also opens with a narrator of a young girl. She already sets the tone by explaining that the story happens to be top secret since the government has gotten involved, making it an unexplained mystery. Then it cuts to show all the children running away in the middle of the night. All of these children had something in common: they had their arms extended outwards, an image both surreal and ominous to see on screen.
From there, the plot moves forward with five perspectives: the teacher, a principal, a cop, a bystander and the parent. Using more perspectives than he did in his film, “Barbarian,” Cregger
used the perspective of the teacher to show that she taught all of the children who went missing, except for one boy.
Cregger’s choice to replay events throughout the film helped to better understand every
part of the mystery, especially the reveal of one of the characters who moves into town, Gladys.
The performances of the actors were strong, with each of their characters having their own form of trauma that makes them who they are. The trauma held by Gladys’ character, most of all, was especially terrifying; it developed from the beginning to the end, as the mystery unfolded.
The ending of the film was especially impactful, a suddenly chaotic and satisfying part of the plot that was so thrilling, it made me start laughing at how crazy this was for a mystery horror
film. It’s safe to say that this was one of the few movie experiences I’m actually grateful for, unlike some other films this year.
Dalila Benmakhlouf is a senior majoring in English Literature and minoring in Creative Writing.
