'Weapons' review: Original, compelling, mystifying

If a story is what happens but a plot is the order in which it's told, Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” is a plotting master class. Beginning with the disappearance of many children in a small town, “Weapons” leads us through the emotional aftermath, the discovery of strange clues and finally the original events behind the mystery. Whether it all ultimately satisfies will be up to the viewer, but as a moviegoing experience “Weapons” is never less than riveting.

In peaceful little Maybrook, a young elementary school teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), shows up to work one morning to find her classroom all but empty. At precisely 2:17 a.m., according to doorbell cameras, 17 of her students bolted from their homes, arms curiously spread like airplane wings, and were never seen again. The police grill the one boy who remains, Alex (Cary Christopher), but to no avail. The townsfolk, naturally, turn against Justine. She retreats into drinking and casual sex with Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a local cop.

And things get weirder. Archer, a bereft dad played by Josh Brolin, pieces together surveillance tapes of the kids and maps their trajectories. The school principal, Marcus (Benedict Wong), undergoes a sudden behavioral change. A local junkie, James (Austin Abrams), hides out in a house that only looks abandoned. (Big mistake.) And an out-of-towner named Gladys — a bizarre, bewigged, makeup smeared figure — is clearly involved in the strange goings-on. Played by a terrific Amy Madigan, she’s one of the freakiest cinematic apparitions since Robert Blake in “Lost Highway.”

Cregger (2022’s “Barbarian”) has fashioned something unusual here: a horror film that also works as a drama. It draws from Stephen King and David Lynch, of course, but also from Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia,” as Cregger has openly acknowledged. As the film shifts focus from person to person, we get to know them intimately, even the minor ones. That makes some of their gruesome fates — shot, crushed, strangled, mangled — all the more ghastly.

The end credits roll against a mystical-looking blue circle within a triangle. Unless I missed something, this symbol is never explained or even introduced in the film. Does it add to the eeriness, or is it just a loose end Cregger forgot to knot? No matter — “Weapons” is more about the journey than the destination.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com