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The premise of Weapons grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go. It’s so good and effective, it’s the obvious choice to start the film. A child introduces the premise while George Harrison’s anthem “Beware of Darkness” plays. It goes like this: in a small Pennsylvania town, every child from one single classroom except one woke up at the same time in the middle of the night and ran into the darkness, never to be seen again. The hour they left was recorded by the alarms in their homes, and the only clue the authorities have is the haunting security camera footage of the kids running through the deserted neighbourhoods.

The teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), was accused of being involved in their disappearance, but there was not enough evidence to convict her. One month later, the school reopens, and the film starts.

You need a fair amount of confidence in your story to drop us into a plot that is already underway. Set the table and put the pieces in place, and enjoy the ride. Zach Cregger, who wrote and directed this film, trusts that the story he has will live up to its expectations; he starts by raising them to the top. And he’s not wrong.

When we start, Justine is being softly let go by the Principal of the school (Benedict Wong) after complaints from the parents, including Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the disappeared. At night, Justine eases the pain with vodka and tries to seduce Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a local police officer. But Justine’s most important task is to try to talk with Alex (Cary Christopher), the only child who didn’t disappear, in the hope he holds a key to solving the mystery.

The script is divided into chapters, each following a different character to give a different perspective of the investigation, like Rashomon, and whether the ghosts were genuinely scary. However, unlike Rashomon, all characters are isolated from each other, only meeting up to share their differences instead of the knowledge they obtained. It’s the audience that puts the pieces together, and only good fortune can help the protagonists find a resolution.

It’s an interesting proposition Cregger puts forward, that reveals and demystifies the American myth of the tight-knit small-town community. When faced with an unexplained collective traumatic event, the community, a bulwark of the unbroken American spirit, divides itself with suspicion, accusation, vices, and unreasonable show of force against the authority. There’s a father who is not keen on helping, and an old aunt, a police officer who quickly punches a homeless man only to make up for it when he realises his dash cam was on, a woman who panics at seeing a neighbour covered in blood. Even the detail that the parents of the disappeared children still don’t know each other after a month resonates, showing how they all suffered their loss in isolation.

This is highlighted by how Cregger films with these long tracking shots following the characters, almost reminiscent to Paul Thomas Anderson. The most unlikely inspiration to a horror movie and yet, because of its thematic thread, it kind of makes sense.

That said, Cregger only scratches the surface of this idea. The introduction of one mysterious character halfway, which I won’t reveal so not to spoil their impact, reframes the rest of the film to a specific subgenre of horror, at the expense of the idea Cregger seemed to hint. So while the film torpedoes towards a brutal, bloody and oh-so-satisfying ending, it leaves this lingering sense that it didn’t reach its potential.

This still doesn’t diminish the enjoyment of Weapons. Cregger has built a compelling and entertaining film. In a way, it’s a perfect post-pandemic film in how it addresses our collective experience of self-destructing when facing a catastrophe we cannot understand. The end also mirrors this – there is no happy end, there is no going back to the status quo. Those scars now run deep and only increase the separation. Or like George Harrison said: Watch out now // Take care, beware of the thoughts that linger // Winding up inside your head // The hopelessness around you // In the dead of night //Beware of sadness.

Verdict: 3.5 out of 5
For anyone who is still trying to reason, where did we go wrong in the past 20 years? Weapons offers no solutions, but stark realisations (and a brutally cathartic, if dark, ending).

Ticket giveaway – Mr Burton

LSJ Online and Kismet movies have five double passes for the upcoming Toby Jones drama, MR BURTON.

Before the fame. Before the legend. There was a teacher who saw the fire. Set in post-war Wales, MR BURTON is the powerful true story of the bond between a gifted teen and the mentor who helped shape him into acting great Richard Burton. With Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Leslie Manville (Phantom Thread), it hits cinemas 14 August. Watch the trailer here. For a chance to win one of the double passes, email journal@lawsociety.com.au with the subject line MR BURTON by Tuesday 12 August.