A crazy ride with a lot of scares on the way that eventually leads to a bizarre and darkly funny ending. 

Plot

One night at 2:17 in the morning all the children of one class got out of bed and walked out the door and disappeared. All but one boy, Alex. The next day when their teacher Justine comes into class Alex is the only one sitting there. Of course all the parents are devastated, looking for answers and a scapegoat. Because Justine is their teacher, she’s an easy target all the more because she has a reputation for crossing boundaries with children (read: hugging a child that’s in distress). 

One of those parents is Archer. He is desperately looking for his son, and has some smart methods by checking the doorbell cameras to find out where the children were heading. While Justine wants to talk to Alex but has been told by Marcus the principle not to, she goes to Alex’ house. A house that has its window covered up with newspapers and there seems to be nobody home. Archer was led to this house as well. In the meantime they both have horrible nightmares of a very creepy looking women who haunts them. They have to find answers soon before it’s too late. 

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Short Review

We follow six main characters throughout the story in different chapters. Each chapter shows us the happenings after the disappearances from another perceptive. We follow Justine, the school teacher who is accused of having something to do with these disappearances. She is involved with her students, maybe a little too much, but she’s also selfish. She wants to feel better about this whole situation and makes some bad decisions. Her character is the most fleshed-out and she has good and bad traits.

Archer is a concerned father but he is being smart about it, checking the doorbell cameras to find out where the kids were heading. When his path crosses Justine’s they each share their experiences and work together.

We also follow the principle Marcus, police officer Paul an intimate acquaintance of Justine, and a hobo named James who gets on the wrong side of Paul. They all are on to something and that comes at a cost.

Finally we follow Alex, the boy who stayed. He’s the most interesting character. He’s a quiet boy, who loves his parents, but hasn’t found his own place in the world yet, not even in the classroom. He’s bullied and when his aunt Gladys shows up, who’s very sick, things change for the worse. His chapter has the big reveal. This reveal also nullifies the big scares, the really frightening jump scares and the mysterious ominous tone of the film. When the cat is out of the bag, the tension is gone and the whole tone of the film changes. That doesn’t automatically mean it’s a bad thing. It does mean that the film is divided into different sections. Not only chapters of different characters that slowly reveal more of the story, but also the overall tone and vibe changes. 

The film starts out very mysterious, with a creepy ominous tone. The jump scares are great and scary and well placed. It even gets a bit surreal sometimes. The dreams, the appearances of the creepy woman, it all feels very uncomfortable, strange and weird. Then the tone shifts. It is revealed what was and is actually happening and that feels far more mundane, in the supernatural world that is, than the first part. And immediately the film isn’t scary anymore in the sense of ominous, but it feels sad and tragic and claustrophobic, trapped inside a dark fairytale. 

It certainly does remind of Clegger’s film Barbarian (2022) where the film was also divided into different parts. In that film the tone also shifted from mysterious to a reveal that was sad and tragic and with a big fight at the end.

This film also has a big fight at the end, that eventually turns into a bizarre ending that feels absurd in a very good way. The film is a rollercoaster of tones and vibes, and doesn’t have the usual set up. Instead we are thrown into a scary pit of darkness, then to see the light and to eventually get some revenge.  

The role of Gladys is excellently played. She’s both intensely scary, eccentric, funnily weird at first glance, but in the end her fate is a hilarious one. 

The whole film is a straightforward horror, with a bit of character development, but without themes and deeper meanings, and feels like a dark fairytale. But it does its job to scare us, to make us wonder what happened and to make us laugh a bit at the end.

Weapons takes you on a horror ride that certainly knows how to scare and to entertain.