Never Ending Movie Carnival
Never Ending Movie Carnival
Weapons movie review: easily the best horror film of this year
Weapons - Stunning, outrageous and cerebrally creepy and remarkably cruel!
The best part about Weapons is that it starts with a child giving you a prelude about the plot and ends with a group of children, and you are hit by the starkly contrasting scenarios that represents the mind-bending spectrum of the Zach Cregger film – which by no means is based on real incidents, but figments of his wild cinematic ambitions and imagination.
Seventeen little students from Maybrook Elementary school vanish at the dread of the night – 2:17 AM from the same class except one, named Alex (a terrific Cary Christopher) and are untraceable – leading to a frenzied outrage among the parents residing in McCarren County. They suspect the class teacher, Justine (Julia Garner) to be a witch and behind this incident while Archer (Josh Brolin), one of the parents, becomes a desperate self-appointed man on the mission to bust the mystery behind the disappearance.
This is my 3rd film of Cregger, after ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Companion’ (he produced it), and I am completely in awe of his astute craft and storytelling, who knows how to elevate the unfamiliar themes of terror and tease through an arresting background score and unpredictable twists and turns.
In Weapons, he adopts a non-linear narrative, decomposing them into chapters named after the fascinating characters studded in the 2 hour 8-minute of investigation, intrigue and bizarre events – ultimately converging into a dark allegory. In the process, he extracts terrific performances from Garner and Brolin and takes you through a wildly orchestrated and graphic orgy in the last 20 minutes.
Amy Madigan as Gladys Lilly is deliciously creepy and Alden Ehrenreich as the local cop Paul delivers an earnest performance.
Going with 4.5 stars out of 5 for Weapons. It’s easily the best horror film of this year – Stunning, outrageous and cerebrally creepy and remarkably cruel!
Ahwaan Padhee, is an IT Techie/Business Consultant by profession and a film critic/cinephile by passion, is also associated with Radio Playback as well, loves writing and conducting movie quizzes. More By Ahwaan Padhee