This text comprises spoilers for “Weapons.”
“Weapons,” the newest horror characteristic from author/director Zach Cregger, is a masterclass in manipulation — in additional methods than one. Cregger’s prior movie (his first as a solo filmmaker), “Barbarian,” was a film that was very intelligent in its misdirection, main audiences to imagine one factor was occurring when it wasn’t, and hiding what was really occurring from individuals till the proverbial lure was able to be sprung. Given the overall rapturous response to that film, Cregger should have been conscious that his follow-up could be underneath heavy scrutiny for any huge twists and turns from the beginning, one thing which “Barbarian” did not must cope with. As such, Cregger has constructed “Weapons” across the very concept of an unsolved thriller. In different phrases, each the movie’s characters and the viewing viewers are asking the identical central query: what occurred to 17 explicit kids who left their properties within the early morning/one evening and vanished?
Owing a debt to different thriller field movies and exhibits like “Knock on the Cabin” and “The Leftovers,” “Weapons” will get its narrative power from following an ensemble of characters as all of them try to unravel and/or cope with this thriller in their very own means. Normal audiences have been skilled to seek for clues and put them collectively due to a long time of twisty tales, and there is an impulse some must leap to the wildest concept possible in an effort to outsmart the filmmaker (if the response to HBO’s “Westworld” is any indication). Cregger subverts this impulse by hiding the reply in plain sight towards the start of the movie. Within the film’s first phase centered round Justine (Julia Garner), the schoolteacher whose class is the one factor all of the lacking kids had in widespread, the lady’s automobile is vandalized, the phrase “WITCH” painted on the facet.
Certainly, there’s a witch guilty for the youngsters’s disappearance, but it surely is not poor Justine. As a substitute, its Gladys Lilly (Amy Madigan), the aunt of Alex (Cary Christopher), who’s the one baby who did not go lacking from Justine’s class. This comparatively simple reveal might additional frustrate some viewers given the massive quantity of ambiguity surrounding Gladys’ strategies and motivations. Right here, then, is all we find out about Aunt Gladys, adopted by an try and try to lay out what precisely she would possibly’ve been as much as.
Who’s Aunt Gladys, actually and figuratively?
In Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s 1988 thriller “The Vanishing,” the protagonist is tortured and finally undone by the prospect of by no means realizing what occurred to his kidnapped girlfriend. In the identical means that one may view the ending of that film as a twisted punchline, Cregger makes use of the character of Gladys in “Weapons” as a equally sick joke, one which’s performed extra on the viewers than the opposite characters. Except seeing her withered and frail in a few of her non-public moments, Gladys is usually portrayed within the film as a gaudy, unexpectedly well mannered, and chipper determine. Her over-the-top make-up and brilliant purple hair nearly make her look like a kind of clown. This in fact ties her to the lengthy historical past of killer clowns in actual life and in fiction, but it surely appears like “Weapons” is not attempting to make a John Wayne Gacy or Pennywise comparability as a lot because it’s within the tonal juxtaposition of Gladys’ character.
This vary of tonal colours to Gladys is one thing actress Amy Madigan pulls of with aplomb. Because it seems, her prowess with the function is among the most important the reason why Cregger was keen to present her the half. Because the filmmaker defined in an unique interview with /Movie’s Chris Evangelista:
“…I’ve all the time been an enormous fan of hers, and I simply know that she will be able to do something. You watch her in ‘Subject of Desires’ and he or she’s this firecracker and completely bouncy and simply actually humorous. And you then watch her and ‘Gone Child Gone,’ and he or she’s simply heavy. And you then watch her in “Carnivale,” and he or she’s intimidating. So I used to be identical to, ‘She will be able to excel at all the pieces I want this character to excel in.'”
Along with Cregger wanting Madigan to play quite a lot of tones and feelings, the character of Gladys has many layers of subtext and subversion to her. As a substitute of being a demonic mastermind enjoying an insidious, intricate lengthy recreation (as with the witches seen in Ari Aster’s “Hereditary,” for example), Gladys is just an unwell lady utilizing her expertise in an effort to attempt to get effectively and dwell longer. She’s a manipulator each in her demeanor (being overly form to strangers to get them to let their guard down) and in her witchcraft (controlling the minds of others in an effort to use them for his or her lifeforce or as weapons). She will get her actual energy from hiding in plain sight, identical to the “WITCH” clue on Justine’s automobile.
Why did Gladys take the schoolchildren, and what was she doing with them?
One of many ingenious facets of “Weapons” is the way it leans into its allusions to true crime and supernatural thriller, two subgenres which might be well-known for entering into the weeds of a thriller and arising with outrageous, intricate theories. The place Justine, Archer (Josh Brolin), and the viewers might have their minds racing with potentialities concerning the lacking Maybrook youngsters, alongside comes Gladys as a rejoinder to all of that. Gladys, once more, will not be a mastermind; she’s merely an opportunist. The principle purpose she used her witchcraft to abduct 17 youngsters from one classroom is that she may ask her nephew in that class, Alex, to surreptitiously get hold of the objects she wanted from them with out suspicion. She places Alex’s dad and mom underneath her spell as a result of they’re her household and the 2 nearest individuals she will be able to begin with. She avoids placing Alex in her thrall to assist preserve a public normalcy for so long as doable. She solely assaults Justine, Archer, and others once they get too near discovering her secret. She’s very sensible!
Taking that practicality under consideration, the explanation for Gladys’ abduction of the youngsters appears to be solely for no matter supernatural course of permits her to siphon a therapeutic life pressure from their our bodies (or souls, maybe). Cregger even provides an additional subversion on prime of Gladys’ plot, which is that this spell apparently does not work in addition to she’d hoped. Just like somebody considering that taking eight Tylenol as an alternative of the really helpful two will quell their headache, Gladys is just trying to up the dosage on her therapeutic spell with the youngsters. One of many ironies within the movie is that, if Gladys knew forward of time it would not be that efficient, maybe she would not have gone to all that bother of the kidnapping, the cover-up, and so forth.
This feeds into one of many central themes of the film, which is that a lot of tragic, horrific occasions typically have mundane explanations, which is typically worse than no clarification in any respect. The theme might be seen all through the movie, and is maybe finest exemplified by the non-significance of the time of two:17am, when the youngsters go away their properties. Quite than this explicit time being in some way vital, it seems to easily be when Gladys completed concocting her spell and executed it; it may’ve been a minute earlier, a minute later, or a half-hour later. In the best way that Gladys weaponizes the individuals round her, Cregger weaponizes the audiences minds and expectations towards them. As “Weapons” proves, it is tremendous efficient.
