“Weapons,” out now, is one of the very best movies you’ll see this year and an instant horror classic, combining elements of Paul Thomas Anderson (a sprawling, multi-pronged story told from multiple characters’ perspectives) and John Carpenter (creeping dread, sly social commentary). And honestly, the less you know the better, since the power of “Weapons” comes from the movie’s slow reveal of the truth behind the disappearance of an entire classroom’s worth of little kids.
As the film unfolds, we get the mystery investigated and expanded upon by a host of townsfolk – the teacher of the missing kids (Julia Garner), a father of a missing boy (Josh Brolin) and a local beat cop (Alden Ehrenreich), among others. And then when the truth is finally revealed, it’s a doozy. “Weapons” hails from “Barbarian” director Zach Cregger, so you know that it’s full of twists, turns and oddly laugh-out-loud funny humor.
But we can’t express how powerful the ending is so if you haven’t seen “Weapons” or still want to see it, turn back now. This is a very big spoiler warning. We’re going deep.
First question: what happened to the kids who disappeared?
The kids, who all got up at 2:17 a.m. and ran out of their respective homes, into the darkness, were under the control of a power spell. They ran into the home of Alex Tilly (Cary Christopher), the one kid from Miss Gandy’s class who didn’t disappear. As it turns out his “aunt” Gladys (Amy Madigan), who is a witch, collected the kids to (presumably) suck their life force out to keep her alive. Gladys had Alex steal something from each of the kids, which is essential to the ritual working. The police investigated Gladys’ home but never found the kids because she hid them.
How do they find the kids?
Anthony (Austin Abrams), a local drug addict and vagabond, discovers the kids after breaking into the house. He brings it to the attention of Paul Morgan (Ehrenreich), a local cop. Of course they go to the house only to come under the spell of Gladys and her mystical powers. Eventually, Archer Graff (Brolin) and Miss Gandy (Garner) do their own investigation and reach the same conclusion – the kids are in the Tilly house. Time to rescue some abductees.
How do they rescue the kids?
You’re asking the wrong question.
Sorry, do they rescue the kids?
Not really.
Go on.
When Miss Gandy and Graff get into the house, they are attacked by Morgan and Anthony, under the spell of Gladys. Miss Gandy has to kill Morgan, her ex-flame, and Graff has to beat Anthony, nearly to death, before he’s shot to death by Miss Gandy. (She steals Morgan’s service weapon.) And young Alex gets to help out too. He breaks into the room where his evil aunt has been staying and uses her techniques to possess the kids in the basement once again – this time weaponizing them against her. In a bravura, go-for-broke sequence towards the very end, Gladys is chased through the neighborhood by the horde of children, as they break through glass windows and trash the interior of houses. Finally, they get ahold of her and literally rip her to pieces (one kid pulls half of her head off), before stopping and going into a catatonic state.
Wow.
Yeah, big time wow. Graff finds his son and is seen, at the very end, walking away with him. But it’s not some happy ending. In fact, our young narrator, who has done a great job leading us through the story, said that most of the kids who ran away remained catatonic. But some started speaking again. Grim.
What does it mean?
Well, “Weapons,” at its heart, serves as an allegory for school shootings and the way that a mass tragedy impacts the community around that event. It also satirizes the “magical thinking” employed by conservatives around these events – treating the kids’ disappearance as an actual supernatural conspiracy, like something out of a fairy tale. And, as the narrator says at the beginning of the movie, it’s something that has been covered up and forgotten about in the years since – just like every major tragedy (which is always followed by another major tragedy).
These traumas are something to be wished away, which the events of “Weapons” are too – mass possession, witchcraft, murder – all something that can be prayed away. The ending represents that these events have a way of scarring the community, not in the immediate aftermath but deep down in the town’s bones. This will be something they will be dealing with for generations, even if they want to sweep it under the rug or wish it away. The pain, the death, all of that suspicion, it seeps into the ground, gets into the water, and will be felt for decades to come.
