A child’s voiceover at the beginning of a horror/mystery film might not be the most novel choice, but there’s a way director Zach Creggers uses it in his second film, Weapons, in a matter-of-fact way, making it that much more eerie. Voiced by Scarlett Sher, the voiceover starts telling a story about a town where something strange happened, and the townsfolk were so embarrassed by the incident that they buried it within themselves. It’s a startling detail for a horror movie, where an untoward ‘supernatural’ incident becomes the cause of terror, haunted mansions and urban legends. But Cregger appears more interested in our human reaction – of shame, sadness and denial – to the said incident, refusing to articulate it to the rest of the world. 

It’s most apparent in the way Cregger uses George Harrison’s Beware of Darkness –  probably too literal a choice for a horror film. However, it’s only when the mournful ballad plays as 17 school kids running with their arms spread out, disappear into darkness, is when we register the grief. As the opening voiceover warns us – this incident will never be solved.

One night at 2:17 AM, in a town in Pennsylvania, 17 kids disappear. What’s common between them? They’re all in Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) classroom. When Justine reaches school in the morning – she finds Alex (Cary Christopher) sitting in an otherwise empty classroom. What happened to the kids? Why did only kids in Justine’s class disappear? What happened in the classroom? Angry parents demand answers. The teacher is called a witch, when she tries to express remorse for the kids’ disappearance. The cops question her and Alex, but are nowhere close to an adequate answer. The wound is raw for the whole town, as Justine is unfairly judged for hanging around even after being relieved from her teaching duties. 

Cregger, who announced himself on the world stage with his debut feature, Barbarian (2022), appears to be a genre aficionado. But he also leaves room to see its silliness, using its tropes for satire, social commentary. He showcases the film from a kaleidoscope of PoVs, each dragging the timeline slightly behind, but also building the narrative forward. It’s a sensational choice to showcase how many concurrent lives are leading up to the said central tragedy.  

The story unfolds from multiple perspectives: Justine, at the receiving end of the ire of grieving parents; Archer (Josh Brolin), father of one of the missing children who takes it upon himself to solve the mystery; Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a disinterested cop battling with sobriety and a marriage that might be wilting away; Marcus (Benedict Wong), the principal of the middle-school helping Justine to navigate the ocean of questions with no answers; James (Austin Abrams), a heroin addict who unwittingly gets embroiled in the case, during a burglary attempt. And lastly, we see the story from Alex’s eyes, which also answers most questions from the first hour.  

Cregger is masterful in the way he drip-feeds information to his audience, arguably the best way to make them as invested in solving the mystery as the protagonist or detectives in the film. It’s in the second hour that the film takes a detour towards the occult. It reminded me of last year’s sleeper-hit, Longlegs (2024) by Osgood Perkins. While Perkins’ film thrived on twisted horror and plain discomfort of its audience members, Cregger’s is a more palatable, plot-focused film. It gorgeously blends moody horror, slick mystery and real hurt. Even when the supernatural seems to take over the film, Cregger never lets us disconnect from the pain and the wounds of each of the six protagonists propped up in the narrative. It’s simultaneously gritty and farcical.

‘Elevated horror’ has been coined as a genre in the past few years with the arrival of names like Jordan Peele, Robert Eggers, Ari Aster, Jennifer Kent and Osgood Perkins – which ensure that horror films aren’t mistaken for schlocky, sleazy B-movies. But imbue supernatural stories with pressing metaphors from the real world. It wouldn’t be wrong to include Cregger in this list, especially for his singular taste. The way he shifts gears between horror to drama to action and satire – sometimes in the span of the same or two continuous scenes – takes an assured voice. 

But what’s most satisfying is how Cregger refuses to pin-down his allegory, inviting questions from the audience rather than handing them answers. There are reviews that are likening the empty classroom and grieving parents to a school shooting, or a post-pandemic film. I saw the film’s antagonist (Amy Madigan) as a metaphor for ‘inflexible ideology’ – one that ‘weaponises’ perfectly well-intentioned people, making them single-minded enough to destroy those on the other side. It could be Cregger’s commentary on the current polarisation in the world. 

Barbarian was a left-of-field, profound, ambitious and truly satisfying debut. Though Weapons isn’t able to match its catharsis, Cregger does enough to cement his place as an auteur to watch closely. Look around, maybe there’s no catharsis. Zach Cregger knows this better than most.

*Weapons is playing in theatres now.

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