WEAPONS

WEAPONS is a striking but disturbing horror movie about the disappearance of 17 children who one early morning at 2:17 precisely suddenly jump out of bed and run wildly and weirdly down the street for no apparent reason before vanishing completely. WEAPONS has an exciting third act where the despicable villain, who’s using occult magic to do evil, is finally identified and defeated, but the movie makes a bad choice in storytelling, is filled with lots of strong foul language, and has some extreme and disturbing violence, a slightly graphic bedroom scene, and some other immoral and disquieting content, including a violent example of revenge and a situation where occult magic is used to defeat the occult villain.

The movie begins with a voiceover by a young girl about the whole affair, which has been covered up by the police. The 17 children vanish when they suddenly get out of bed and run weirdly down the street before totally disappearing. All the children were part of one teacher’s class, a messy young blonde woman named Justine. One of the children in her class, however, a boy named Alex, hasn’t vanished.

Alex is rather shy, but there seems to be nothing wrong with him, his parents or the aunt that lives with them. So, suspicion latches onto Justine, and some people start calling her a witch. That’s because videotapes from front door cameras show the children running down the street with their arms outstretched away from their bodies. However, Justine clearly has no idea what happened to the children.

Despite that, Justine has taken to drink in trying to deal with all the animosity coming her way. Also, she apparently has been having an affair with the of the police officers, Paul. One night, with Paul’s wife out of town, they sleep together.

When someone writes “witch” on her car, Justine decides to start investigating the case on her own, because the police seem to be totally flummoxed. She starts following Alex but the ineffectual principal catches wind of that, and he rudely shuts her right down.

The movie then switches its focus to Archer, one of the parents, the fathers of a missing boy named William. Plagued by nightmares, Archer starts his own investigation. He thinks the children were headed toward a point on the map. So, he starts to graph the direction they were headed.

Two separate sequences follow. The first one focuses on Paul, the married cop Justine is seeing. The second one focuses on a homeless meth addict named James, who has an encounter with Paul where Paul gets angry and punches him, knocking him unconscious. The sequence focusing on James shows how James came to that encounter. James need money, and Paul caught him jimmying an apartment window in an alley. Paul’s punch was caught on his police car camera. So, he lets James go but threatens him never to come near the police headquarters. James still needs money, however, and it’s that quest for money which leads James to discover where all the children went.

The last act of the movie gives viewers the story behind the children’s disappearance. The villain is a despicable person who’s using occult means and other evil actions to fulfill a nefarious goal. Everything comes to an explosive head in the movie’s climax

WEAPONS has an exciting third act where the despicable occult villain is finally identified and overtly opposed. The climax is pretty exhilarating, though violent. However, the movie has some major problems.

First of all, the movie splits up its story in the first and second act into four characters. Thus, the first act focuses on the teacher of the class, Justine, played by Julia Garner. It then focuses on one of the parents, Archer, the father of a missing boy named Michael. The movie next focuses on a young married cop working on the case who sleeps with Justine and a homeless meth addict named James who has an encounter with the cop. James turns out to be the one who finds where the missing children went, but the villain overcomes him. Splitting up the story into these four characters slows down the story a little bit, especially at first. However, everything comes together in the exciting ending that becomes a battle between the villain and Justine who’s working with Archer to save the children and defeat the villain.

WEAPONS also has a mixed worldview. On the one hand, the movie is a fight of good versus despicable occult evil. Without giving anything away, the villain turns out to be a strange evil person who’s been using occult means against the children and three other people to satisfy a nefarious, selfish goal. That aspect of the movie is very positive. On the other hand, in the final climax, an occult spell is used at a crucial moment to turn the tables on the powerful occult villain. Also, the movie’s ending includes a disturbing and violent but victorious act of revenge, preceded by a funny, exciting and exhilarating chase.

WEAPONS is also marred by some other negative and immoral content. First of all, the movie has lots of strong foul language, including many “f” words and several strong profanities. Also, the movie has some extreme, bloody and disturbing violence. For example, the occult villain makes two people repeatedly stab a fork into their cheeks to force another person to cooperate. The movie also contains a couple bloody shootings, and a scene where a character slams another person’s head repeatedly into a linoleum floor. In addition to all this, there’s a brief, slightly graphic bedroom scene between Justine and the married cop. Finally, two supporting male character s are homosexuals living together, and the homeless James character smokes a meth pipe in two or so scenes and has a batch of needles in his tent to inject himself with drugs.

So, despite its positive theme of good versus despicable occult evil and some highly entertaining moments, WEAPONS is excessive and ultimately unacceptable.