Weapons: A Frustrating Horror Outing That Lacks Focus (4K)

The Film:

Writer/director Zach Cregger truly rose to prominence just three years ago with his 2022 feature "Barbarian," which had a number of problems plaguing it, including a lack of focus, an irritating structure that had the stories stopping & starting over and over, and an over-reliance on the characters being dumber than usual for a horror film. However, despite all of these issues, many people enjoyed it anyway, leading to great anticipation as to what Cregger was going to do next. This brings us to his latest project "Weapons," in which he presents a rather intriguing mystery involving disappearing children. Will Cregger be able to stay on track this time and delivery a horror outing worthy of its compelling set-up, or will this just be another disappointment to go along with his previous attempt?

The film begins by explaining how 17 kids from the same class ran out of their homes at 2:17 A.M. and disappeared, leaving just one child, Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), who didn't. This brings their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), under great suspicion, especially from a parent of one of the missing kids, Archer (Josh Brolin). Justine is placed on leave as the incident is being investigated, but she becomes concerned for Alex and tries to check on him, leading her to notice some very strange things going on at his house.

Meanwhile, Archer starts his own investigation by reviewing security footage of the kids and trying to track down where they may have gone. We also follow Justine's ex-boyfriend Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a police officer who becomes entangled in the case after coming into contact with a drug addict (Austin Abrams) who stumbled into it himself. As everyone gets closer and closer to the center of the mystery, terrifying events begin to occur that show that something quite sinister is at the heart of it, ultimately forcing some of them to put their lives on the line to discover what happened to the missing kids.

As mentioned, Cregger's previous feature, "Barbarian," had a few problems that held it back quite a bit, which makes it rather unfortunate to have to report that he apparently didn't learn anything from them and has once again made many of the same mistakes for his follow-up. For starters, he tries to use a structure that features multiple points of view throughout the film, jumping from one to another in an attempt to connect them all to the central mystery, but all this ends up doing is making the film extremely unfocused and giving it the feeling of being all over the place, which is only compounded his hesitation to delve into said mystery.

There are even entire portions, mainly involving the cop and the junkie, that feel like they barely have anything to do with the story at all, and yet, Cregger spends quite a lot of time on them, only to have them be pretty much superfluous in the end. If the focus had remained on Justine & Archer as they go about investigating the missing children, that wandering/meandering feeling likely would've been greatly reduced or eliminated entirely, on top of cutting down a completely unnecessary & bloated runtime of over two hours.

However, even if he had been able to bring some focus to its most important sections, there's still the problem of the rather weak explanation for the film's mystery, which obviously won't be spoiled here, but suffice it to say that it's unsatisfying and will likely leave you wishing he had put a little more effort into coming up with a better resolution. In the end, it's fair to say that "Weapons" is a step above "Barbarian" in that it's at least partially compelling when it's actually focused on its main plot, but like Cregger's previous feature, it simply has too many issues holding it back, ultimately making this just another frustrating & disappointing horror outing in his filmography.

Video/Audio:

"Weapons" comes to 4K in a 2.39:1, 2160p Ultra High Definition transfer of outstanding quality. The picture is beautifully sharp & clear throughout its 128-minute duration, even during the darkest of scenes. Likewise, the Dolby Atmos-TrueHD audio track is wonderful, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in excellent quality. Overall, Warner Bros. has done a marvelous job in both areas for the film's 4K debut.

Special Features:

Director Zach Cregger: Making Horror Personal (6 Minutes): A featurette that focuses on how the idea for the film came about and how it developed.

Weaponized: The Cast of Weapons (9 Minutes): A featurette that explores the ensemble.

Weapons: Texture of Terror (7 Minutes): A featurette that looks at the design of the film.

Conclusion:

Zach Cregger's "Weapons" has a somewhat compelling mystery at its core, but due to its unwillingness to dive into it and its unfortunate tendency to get distracted, it merely ends up becoming a rather frustrating horror outing that needed some pruning to help bring focus to its most important elements, on top of needing a more satisfying answer to said mystery, ultimately making for another disappointing entry in Cregger's filmography

Score: 2.5/5

Available on 4K starting today.

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