Weapons: A Pleasing Misfire

I am putting on my bullet-proof vest and requesting a firearm license. The night is closing in all around. Here comes the darkness, the haters. Am I being dramatic? Yes. Do I think it’s funny? Yes. Do you care? Let me know.

I liked Weapons (2025). It’s a cut above most other horror films in this golden age (so far as quantity is concerned, if not always quality). It’s hard to sing its praises without revealing too much. But suffice it to say that its slow-boil approach to narrative, willingness to trust the audience, and commitment to (mostly) complex, lived-in characters testify to serious craftsmanship. Zach Cregger is no lightweight.

Just about everyone has heaped praise upon it. Audiences agree. Steeled with my very clear and undeniable agreement with the critical consensus, I’d much rather share what didn’t work for me.

I’m a teacher. My wife is a teacher. The first character whose narrative we inhabit, Justine (Julia Garner) is also a teacher. Cregger allows her to be a human being, much wanted these days. Her entire class just up and leaves from their homes one day at 2:17 AM, all except for one boy. We hear from the principal that she has been “inappropriate” with students, but this just means she hugged one and drove another home when he had no ride. Justine wears a “stop bullying” pin and faces the ire of the community for her presumed implication in the disappearance. The life of the teacher is an odd one, caught between professionalism and genuine concern.

But she also drinks, way too much. We see her hauling two bottles of vodka to the car, and her ex-boyfriend, a cop, suggests this isn’t new behavior. He warns that she’s neurotic, always imagining others are thinking about her, always thinking about herself and how she feels. She, in turn, cuts him off, “what? To stop being so ‘Justine?’” Cregger’s dialogue captures how such people actually are (I should know). She’s not a bad person, nor does she want ill for anyone else. The town does dislike her. But are they out to get her? She is, after all, always thinking about how she fits into things, even when the subject at hand is missing kids.

That same ex breaks his sobriety for her. She doesn’t seem to care, actually appears gratified with her conquest, though most of all with not being alone for a few hours. Justine, in other words, stands in for many contemporary people—driven, kind, good hearted, but ultimately self-obsessed, always forcing herself and her needs into things.

I wanted more of this—how rare is actual characterization in horror films! But, as soon as we drop her perspective, all the drama of her interior life fades away, and the importance of her relationship with the kids and her ex melts into nothingness. We’re in a pretty typical, if well made, horror film from then on.

My second gripe is more critical than textual. A lot of ink has been spilled, digitally speaking, about the movie’s commentary on “generations.” This seems rather overblown to me. It is true that Weapons’ antagonist is an old woman and that what she does (trying to be tactful here) involves burdening younger people. But that’s about where the analogy ends—none of the traits of “Boomerism” seem all that present. She’s not loaded, nor does she vote for more boats and fewer immigrants. If anything, Weapons uses age in the way that many a folktale does: old, lonely women hunt the young for their power. It’s “Hansel and Gretel”; it’s the Peddler from “Snow White.” Nothing new or trenchant here.

My wife said she thought the whole thing might be an allegory for child abuse. From the teacher’s perspective, that makes sense. You never do know exactly what’s going on in a student’s home. Certainly the movie has more to offer based on that interpretation than it does so far as generations are concerned (no disrespect to the many writers I admire who have taken to that line of thinking—I may be missing something).

Okay. Bulletproof vest off. Application withdrawn. No more weapons for me.