What makes a horror movie truly great? 

That’s not an easy question. Off the top of my head it’s got to be scary, innovative, well acted, well written, visually interesting. Some of the horror flicks that make this greatness level for me would include, Night of the Living Dead, Alien, Hereditary and Pearl, just to name a few (I could probably list a few dozen if given the time).

What those movies have in common is that they either brought something new to the genre, or they nailed every single facet of storytelling.

Why am I going on about this? Because I wanted so so bad for Weapons to be among one of these movies. It had a lot going for it, a great trailer, a strong premise, and a lead actor who I absolutely love. If you haven’t watched the series Ozark, watch it, for nothing else than the terrific acting by Julia Garner. When I saw she was starring in this, I could barely wait until it hit streaming.

My post-viewing verdict? Weapons is a strong movie. It’s solid and entertaining. But it doesn’t quite make the canon of the greats.

Quick recap of Weapons: one night at 2:17 am all the children of a certain classroom, except one, awake from their beds, leave their houses, and vanish.

Killer logline, right?

And the visuals in the trailer of kids running quietly in the night with their arms extended like airplanes. Simple, strong, creepy.

What Weapons has going for it is its different take on the protagonist (or protagonists) Julia Garner’s character, Justine, is the teacher of the class. Suspicion falls on her for somehow being involved. We have sympathy for her, but we also see another side of Justine. She’s a messy drunk. With a history. She’s not pure and plucky like many horror heroines. While she’s easy to root for, she’s also self sabatoging. I liked this twist.

Also, there are other characters, Josh Brolin plays Archer, the father of one of the missing kids. He’s kind of a dick, but again, we’re on his side. Alden Ehrenreich plays a cop and Justine’s ex. He’s a recovered alcoholic who slips up in many ways. And finally, we’ve got Austin Abrams, who plays the town junkie. Both of these characters cross paths and do things that we should dislike them for, but the way they’re written and acted, their flaws are somehow made relatable.

And finally, on the plus side, we have our villain, Aunt Gladys, played by Amy Madigan. She’s the aunt of Alex, the sole child who did not disappear. Visually she’s an A+ as a horror creature. She’s got major wicked witch vibes.

So we’ve got an interesting premise, compelling characters, solid acting and visuals. What’s holding me back from loving Weapons?

One thing is how they chose to tell the story. It wasn’t exactly linear. They’d focus on one character in turn, telling the story from their perspective, then backtrack to another character to tell it from their perspective, filling in the gaps. I liked this puzzle box method, but for me it kept on breaking the tension. It either didn’t belong in a horror movie, or it needed to be finessed.

A second thing was the tone. Sometimes it felt like I was watching a psychological thriller. Sometimes a body horror flick. Sometimes a Tarantino movie from the 90s. And toward the end it was almost a satire of horror movies. All of these elements were well done and interesting, but this inconsistency kept pulling me out of the movie.

But the final and most significant stumbling block I had related to the mythology of the movie. 

(Let’s put aside the meaning of the movie. I’ve read online that Weapons is supposed to be a critique of American society or something. I hope not, because that to me is so trite and boring and lazy. To be honest I’d rather see a movie take on critiques of American society. That would be something novel).

Anyway, all speculative stories have a mythology. What’s the story behind the thing we’re seeing or reading? How did it come about? What are the rules of this universe?

Now I don’t need to be told all the whys, or see all the hows, but I want to have the sense that the writer knows. And I’m not sure if the writers knew why Aunt Gladys did what she did. Was she a garden variety witch? Was she some kind of parasite? How exactly was she using the children? If the writers gave us just a little more of what she was and the hows and whys, she could have risen closer to the pantheon of unforgettable horror villains.

With all that said, watch Weapons. Yes it’s imperfect and slightly disappointing, but it’s tons of fun.