All Herald, there’s a new potential King of Horror in town and his name is Zach Cregger. With his new jolting, captivating film, ‘Weapons’, he can join the likes of Jordan Peele (‘Get Out’, ‘Us’, ‘Nope’) and Ari Aster (‘Hereditary’, ‘Midsommar’) vying for the throne. These filmmakers are using genre in new thematic ways, expressing a degree of art and craft not seen since the heady days of “The Exorcist” and “The Shining”. The key to Cregger’s films seems to be to take a compelling concept, soak it with trappings to fit the times, rinse it with a hearty dose of uproarious black humor, and spin it to completion with edge of your seat, mindblowing finales that have a touch of existentialism for good measure.

It goes without saying that ‘Weapons’ is best to experience with a crowd, not knowing any more than the premise brilliantly set up in the marketing. It opens fairytale style with a quiet voiceover by a young child who explains the inciting event of the film. At exactly 2:17 AM, 17 children, all from the same elementary school class, get up out of their beds and leave their homes for no apparent reason. No one knows why or where they went, but the town is obviously going through the stages of grief, including uproar, as the mystery remains unsolved by local authorities. The parents (mainly led by Josh Brolin, tough but broken) have no other avenue to place blame than on the school and specifically the teacher of the affected class (Julia Garner in another tour de force performance). As with ‘Barbarian’ before it, the story unfurls little by little, moving in truly unexpected directions as it rachets up in stakes.

Unlike ‘Barbarian’, ‘Weapons’ more fully fleshes out its core characters. In fact, the audience gets so sucked into each character’s arc, which overlap brilliantly, that the unfolding mystery is almost second nature. This goes on until the third act where everything goes off the rails in the best possible ways, as unpredictable as anything in recent memory. It’s this combination of character and narrative development that marks this film so compellingly. Garner’s Justine is not some archetype. She’s a complex and very human invention, trapped by both obligation as a caring educator along with the frustrating yet understandable scrutiny the role entails in this situation. Same for Brolin’s Archer, far from one-note as a beleaguered small town general contractor and grieving father. He knows in his gut that there’s more to this story, as misguided as his impulses often are.

These imperfections hold a mirror and spotlight to our current times as headlines espouse the growing trend of parental control over education. ‘Weapons’ creates a blatant and heightened metaphor of a society convinced that teachers may have nefarious reasons for their actions. The reality, and quite frankly the irony, is that all these perspectives are born from the right center of concern for the next generation, no matter how misguided some of the actions of adults may be who think they know better. Or maybe this movie just wants to take its audience on a wild ride and scare the pants off everyone.

Like all great horror masterpieces, ‘Weapons’ can adeptly juggle heavy themes of grief with the fantastical. Without revealing anything in particular, the marketed images of children running at full speed with their arms outstretched behind them, the chimes of some far off bell, are all just part of the intriguing trappings of a new genre classic. While there might be some larger encompassing desires behind Cregger’s manipulation, he’s mainly trying, and wildly succeeding, in putting his viewers on edge and at unease, screaming, giggling, slack-jawed marveling at what unfolds on the big screen. Others have said it, but it’s something to reiterate, ‘Weapons’ is why we go to the movies . . .

Written & Directed By: Zach Cregger

Rated: R

Running Time: 128 min.

* * * * (out of 4 stars) -OR- A