WEAPONS

A brilliantly mysterious, terrifying tale starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin

- WORDS: JASON BEST, NIGEL PIZEY

Picnic at Hanging Rock meets Stephen King, this terrific horror film grabs you by the throat in the first minutes and doesn't let go until its startling climax. The opening is eerie and puzzling. At precisely 2:17am, 17 children from the same elementary school class in a Pennsylvania town called Maybrook leave their homes, run through the dark streets, their arms outspread like aeroplane wings, and vanish.

The remainder of the film slowly untangles this mystery through six chapters, each of which adopts the perspective of a character connected with the children's disappearance: their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), who immediately becomes the focus of the town's suspicion and rage; angry parent Archer (Josh Brolin); local cop and Justine's ex Paul (Alden Ehrenreich); the school's headteacher, Marcus (Benedict Wong); homeless junkie James (Austin Abrams); and, finally, the sole remaining pupil from Justine's class, shy, withdrawn Alex (Cary Christopher).

Writer-director Zach Cregger brilliantly builds suspense, layering strands of modern paranoia over dark, fairy-tale-like elements to create a portrait of a troubled community and a mood of overwhelming dread. The acting is superb, too, with Garner a standout as the flawed but deeply caring Justine, while Amy Madigan, turning up half way through, provides moments of both grotesque comedy and skin-prickling terror. 2025, 18, 128MIN

ROMANCE