Internet Janitor
Never find out how the sausage is made.
In 2022, the director’s previous film, Barbarian, received the same type of critical praise that Weapons did; it was lauded as a masterpiece, a new level of horror films from an original vision. I didn’t care for it, couldn’t understand in the least why it gained so much praise when it came off like a third-rate, direct-to-video, generic film.
The trailer here promises so much that it fails to deliver.
Our tale begins on a day like any other at an elementary school, except that in one classroom, children are all missing. Their teacher, a trainwreck alcoholic, Justine (played by Julia Garner from Fantastic Four 2025), is blamed by the entire town of angry, scared parents. The Sorcerer Supreme Principal (played by Benedict Wong from Marvel) suggests she spend time away. One father (played by Thanos) refuses to accept that Justine is innocent and seeks to find out the truth. The majority of the people in this movie are damaged people, and perhaps there’s a message there. Hard to say.
Tedious. If I had to give a single word as to what I thought, this was it. I kept in my head that the payoff, the reveal as to why the kids left home at 2:17 AM and ran off into the night, would be worth the journey.
Instead, it’s, “Wait, THAT’S what’s going on? I waited all this time for THAT?” But okay, okay, all will be explained.
Nope. I don’t need movies wrapped up in a tight little bow, but at the very least, it needs to make sense in the world the movie has created. The reveal is terrible, but what sticks in my craw is that there is a plot hole so gargantuan (that would be a spoiler, but you’ll know when you get to it) that it makes everything around it fall apart. There’s incompetence, and then there’s what goes on here with law enforcement.
The setup is brilliant. Absolutely a 5-star setup. A horror mystery unlike anything we’ve seen before. Even the odd humour works, to a degree at the start, but it fails to pay off in any single solitary meaningful way. I kept just wanting this movie to wrap itself up so I could go home.
I feel that I should have loved this. I love horror. I love original horror, and as I said, there are some very good parts in here. But as a whole it just does not work. You could chop out a significant part of this movie, and it would have zero effect on the story.
I’m glad it’s doing well, but it wasn’t for me.