Weapons Be Crazy by Gretchen Jackson

Zach Cregger’s film Weapons (in theaters now!) explores what happens to a small town after 17 children from one classroom in the local elementary school go missing … that’s all the children in the same class, except for one. The film focuses on multiple points of view, one at a time, showing how the incident has affected the children’s teacher, the school principal, the father of one of the missing children, and the surviving classmate. (There are admittedly a few other POVs sprinkled in, but they’re on the periphery of the plot rather than wedged right in it.)

When I see a movie, a really great movie, which Weapons is, and it ends in a way that doesn’t quite match the pace of the first two acts, and it throws the whole feel of the movie in another direction, I have trouble going along with it. Weapons is a horror film, but it’s also a fairy tale and a cautionary tale about turning a blind eye to your neighbor’s problems.

And, it’s a treatise on loss.

As an amateur screenwriter, I have ideas about the proper structure of a film – Act One, Act Two, Act Three – that this film just tosses out the window. It’s a bold move. And one that clearly pays off, as everyone everywhere is currently talking about this film.

I give Weapons a 89.5%, a B++ (and I loved it! ) because I just can’t get past the ending. The film was magnificent up until the last part of the third act. I have my own version in my head of how the film should end, which is more optimistic, but maybe less unique. Even trite. And if there’s anything this film is not, it’s trite. (See the last line of my review for the spoiler ending I would have written.)

There are jump scares, and there is gore – turn-your-head-away-from-the-screen gore – that’s squeezed in for shock value, but that’s not the strength of this film. The character development, the building-mystery of what happened to these kids, the slow but effective unravelling of not only the central story but of the characters themselves – that’s the strength of the film. And the points of view covered in Weapons reveals a multi-layered story where each perspective has its own validity.

Could Weapons be the Roshamon for the horror crowd? Maybe.

In addition to the riveting characters, there is a direction this film takes that comes out of nowhere. It takes your breath away, and it explains everything at the same time. And it’s weird. Very weird.

I loved it!

I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s a doozy. And when the ending is finally revealed, you do relax in your seat after being on the edge of it for the first hour and fifty-odd minutes. (Though you may hide your face in your hands for it.)

Weapons is like a rollercoaster – and the final stage of the ride when you’re taxiing into the loading area and you see the eager faces of the ride’s next victims lined up. Your terror is over, and theirs is just about to begin. Yeah, it’s like that.

This film has been sparking the inevitable comparisons – Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction mostly. Structurally-speaking that’s close, but the tone was way different. Magnolia was hopeful and Pulp Fiction was ironic.  But the tone of Weapons is more dreadful.  Kind of like Silence of the Lambs crossed with Nightmare on Elm Street. Or like Weapons’ closest cousin plot-wise, The Sweet Hereafter.

Ultimately, Weapons is that rarest of gems these days – an original. It was tightly written, beautifully executed. Intelligently crafted.

If you have the stomach for it, you’re gonna love it.

Okay, here comes the spoiler!

If I could change one thing about Weapons, it’s the ending.

When Alex snaps that branch, effectively ending Gladys’s reign of terror, instead of Gladys running away and being chased down by the 17 children in the basement, I thought she should have collapsed in on herself, breaking limb after limb until she was just a pile of bones on the kitchen floor. In my mind, this would have instantly released her victims from their trance, and they could have woken up and started the long road to recovery with their loved ones.

I also thought Alex got a raw deal – what with his parents being effectively comatose and institutionalized. The poor kid went through so much! I would have much rather his parents just snap out of it. Then they could turn to him and smooth the hair back from his forehead, cooing in his ear a promise to be there for him and give him the comfort and attention he deserved for going through this terrible ordeal.

If you have seen the film, I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the actual ending. And if you have your own alternate version, I’d love to hear it!