‘Weapons’ Review: The best film I have seen all year round

I had no idea what to expect WeaponsThe newest film by Barbaarse Writer/director, Zach Cregger. I had seen one trailer. I read nothing else about the movie. I went blindly, and you should too. The next assessment is spoil free outside the starting point. Believe me, you have to go to this film without knowing anything beyond the base. I don’t even want to spoil too much of my own reaction to this movie. I will do a follow -up message that digs in the details in a few days, here on this blog, so keep an eye on it.

The setup is fairly simple. One night, at exactly 2:17 pm in the fictional city of Maybrook, seventeen children from the same 3rd class class all leave their homes at the same time and disappear. Only one child appears to school the next day. Their teacher, Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) is immediately suspected of somewhat misconduct. Why would all these children otherwise just get up from the same class and disappear?

What follows is partly horror film, partly brothers Grimm Fairytale, partly black comedy, with small nods to Stephen King and Roald Dahl, among others. It is really difficult to describe. Even if I had littered this review with spoilers, it would be difficult to explain why it works so well and why it feels absolutely single and unique. I am so used to the Slop formula, and not just in the horror morning. This felt new. Cregger’s non-linear stories in Rashomon style helps the various characters and their stories unfold to something really remarkable.

It starts a bit slow and in the beginning I was afraid that it would just be another horror film with some JUMP fears and tension. I couldn’t have been wrong anymore. The two hours and eight minutes of duration flew by, while we were sucked deeper and deeper into the weird, surprisingly hilarious and twisted story about these missing children and the people looking for them, including Archer (Josh Brolin) the father of one of the missing children, and school head, Andrew Marcus (Benedict Wong). The scene stealer, however, was the dark horse of this film, Austin Abrams as a drug addict, James – although he shares some of the best scenes with Paul Morgan van Alden Ehrenreich, a police officer who has seen better days.

I really enjoyed Sinner Earlier this year (you can read my review here), but no matter how great it was, I couldn’t help shake the feeling that it only borrowed a little too much from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s From twilight to dawn. I don’t think that takes away how really great the film was (and to be honest, what a year for high -quality horror!) But it was a nagging thought everywhere. WeaponsOn the other hand, is something for himself. I have never seen anything like that, despite which cultural references are sprinkled everywhere.

There are many ways in which you could interpret this film. Is it an allegory for shootings at school? I think so at a certain level. Is it about the many ways in which we, as people, can be armed – our words, are interactions, our bodies, our thoughts? Certainly. But it is also a modern fairy tale that never gets stuck in allegory. There is nothing preachy here, no political message in your face that takes away you enjoy the film. In the end it is just wild entertaining.

There is so much to get here. Search for my follow -up piece here on this blog and on My YouTube channel.