Weapons

I knew walking in that WEAPONS had a brilliant story hook. What I didn't expect was its smart, "Pulp Fiction"-like story structure, so many killer performances and how tight director Zach Cregger would wind the screws.

The hook is one of the best in years. At 2:17am one morning, 17 of the 18 young students in Mrs. Gandy's class run from their homes and disappear.

Cregger sets up the first ten minutes with a Dateline type feel, but instead of Keith Morrison's booming voice, a young child speaks to us about what happened.

It's haunting and clever, pulling you into what feels like a traditional mystery. We see a parent's meeting at the school in which devastated mothers & fathers hurl threats at Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), accusing her of knowing what happened to their children.

Justine is shattered and spends her days obsessed with the welfare of the one little boy who did show up for her class the next morning, Alex. Is he okay?

Cregger's screenplay begins to reveal pieces of Justine, slowly, methodically. She's harassed, intimidated and flawed. When all the parents of the missing children have no explanation, the most logical suspect is Justine. What did she tell those kids?

We're then pulled into her nightmares, which got some great jumps and laughter from the nearly sold out IMAX preview crowd.

What's fascinating about Cregger's style is that he delivers a LOT of laughs of the darkest nature, sometimes at the scariest moments of the film. But every time you think he's going for fun kills, he shocks you with some intense, grisly gore that pulls you back into terror.

It's all brilliantly structured, not a word I use often in the horror genre beyond the usual suspects where Kubrick, Peele or Carpenter are involved. As Justine's story unfolds, the film moves solidly out of horror and back to mystery.

Then we jump to another character, Archer Graff, played by Josh Brolin in one of his best performances in years. Archer's son is one of the children who ran off into the night. Like many of the parents, he can watch that run over and over on his ring camera footage. Arms spread out like he's about to take off, Matthew Graff flies out the front door, across the street and into the dark woods.

Archer is falling apart, singularly obsessed with finding his son. We begin to see some of the same scenes we've already seen in Justine's story, but this time from Archer's viewpoint, both literally and psychologically.

Then Cregger pops to another character and reveals their story, overlapping yet another view. Then he jumps to another character, then another.

In lesser hands, this would quickly become annoying and tedious.

Not here. I actually grew more excited for each jump, knowing that I'd learn more about just what in the hell is going on in this town.

As frequent readers know, I'm a huge Tarantino fan and it's no small compliment to say that I feel like Cregger has captured the essence of the QT chapters in the way he tells his story, punctured by big laughs and huge scares.

There were two scenes that I wanted to look anywhere but the screen as the camera slinked slowly into dark rooms. Both payoffs scared the hell out of me, along with one of those classic dream within a dream sequences that John Landis created way back in "An American Werewolf in London".

The cast is great across the board, Brolin dominates every scene he's in, Garner creates a multi-faceted, troubled young woman who seems lived in, real.

Alden Ehrenreich (Solo) continues to morph into one of our best character actors. This guy is almost recognizable every time I see him in a new film. His struggling cop becomes one of the funniest through-lines of the story.

Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange) is terrific as the Principal of the school whose children are missing. His scenes with Garner as Justine argues why she wants to stay in her classroom are superb.

Amy Madigan is unrecognizable in her role as the distant relative who's long overstayed her welcome.

Two very important pieces that help define WEAPONS are its music and photography.

I swear that Cinematographer Larkin Seiple (Everything Everywhere All At Once) knows what scares me. Every camera angle, every dark corner and daylight angle delivers the creeps. It's beautifully shot, morphing from a horror film to a detective story to personal drama flawlessly.

The music score by Ryan and Hays Holladay and Cregger is really surprising. When the music over the opening scene morphed into what felt like a 70's ballad set up, I was thinking, "what the hell is this", but a couple minutes later, it settled in as another intriguing choice by Cregger, the sum of which have created one of the best films of the year.

I see those folks online complaining that the ending is a disappointment. I disagree. Superb and ORIGINAL horror concepts are always hard to land. "Hereditary" is one of my favorite scary films of all time, but the last five minutes sucks.

Not here. Cregger delivers one of the most manic, wild, bloodthirsty and propulsive finales in recent memory.

It feels like he's wound the rubber band up as tight as it will go without breaking and then lets it all go in a violent, funny and thrilling finale that left our crowd looking for breath.

WEAPONS is a fully loaded, funny, gory thrill ride with brains and surprises in every chamber. It gets an A.