Zach Cregger's WEAPONS

Where's Robert Stack with his Unsolved Mysteries when you need him? Or as Ricky Jay would say, there is no way that this is just some *thing* happened...

Take it as a metaphor for school shootings and the nightmares that are left in their wake for the victims families and teachers and cops and others in a fractured community (that one dream scene is not subtle with its imagery), or for how sinister a cult leader work to pull people out of their homes and stay under their proverbial (and here literal) spell who will just suck their lifeforce out eventually (or take it to be Occult, close enough wording), and it can work as either of those or I am sure other readings.

Whatever the case, this is one of the most ambitious pieces of genre exploitation that works as phenomenal storytelling first and foremost. Creger said in an interview I happened upon that he started with the premise very simply and one thing flowed after another, and you can feel that kind of creative impulse here in so many ways with the characters. Moreover, this is the kind of great writing where the doubling-back is not a gimmick but a portal into how everyone is sort of separate in this town until they do come together (sometimes completely against their will) and you understand who people are with just minimal explanation (ie one of the MVPs of the movie, June Diane Raphael who is in three scenes and everything about her you get once the second and third scenes explain the first).

Weapons is a full feast of terrific, highly charged but always believable performances - come for Garner and Brolin, stay for young Cary Christopher who does a lot with shockingly restrained work - and superb camera operating. From that opening with that goosebump-laden needle drop and gliding dolly-tracking camera to the jagged style of the climax, and how much the perspectives count in every one of the storylines here, there is such confidence in what Cregger is directing us to see. There are details about who is doing what to who, and in a sense it is not about cracking open a mystery exactly - you know at least where the bad stuff is taking place by the end of the first sort of act - but the how of it is so much fun to uncover.

But I was taken with how much there is an emotional pull and sympathy for many of these people, yes up to and including the pathetic guy James and what he goes through before going to where all the bad things will happen (trying to stay vague here). There is that sense because Cregger did Barbarian of "Ok, when are we going to get dropped into the WTF pool," but unlike that film this is more gradual and it is like you're getting fed crumbs - or, mild spoilers, spoonfuls of ugly ass soup - and by the time we see what Aunt Gladys is up to with that bowl of water, it is like.... oh, whoa, WHOA, okay! And off we are into the terror-races.

What I mean by the deeper readings is that the film invites them in a way precisely because it doesn't shove it down our throats, if that makes sense (as another comparison, think of other times horror filmmakers come with an agenda in place like the recent Halloween movies, or to an extent The Hunt, curiously also featuring Amy Madigan, who practically runs away with the movie here). It is about the characters and how they are or are certainly not navigating these Very Bad Times, with some (ie Alden Ehrenreich) with their own sets of problems that converge with the others, and the filmmakers dont forget to give the goods on the creepy and eerie and ultra violent Shock Value that Cregger has the brilliant skill to merge into what he has in his script.

The bottom line is, this is the sort of film where the director has you from minute one, your attention is rewarded, and eventually you'll find yourself howling with laughter at what should be an inappropriate time but... fuck it, this is also classic Exploitation filmmaking at its core and I love it for that. Come for the horror and commentary, stay for the Weaponizing.

So uh... if Short Cuts and Village of the Damned collided?  (I know, I should say Magnolia but I am being contrarian a bit)