It’s always a good sign when leaving a movie that I feel like I needed to get home as quick as possible to type these words. Not specifically just to continue to get the word out about the film before it gets spoiled for audiences, but because there is so much to say about it that can’t stay rattling silently in my brain. But as I type, my thoughts are soup (no pun intended if you’ve seen the movie), because Cregger has made a soup, or moreso a meaty stew. Uniquely crafted ensemble, all the main characters of their own story. Fragmented sections focused on different perspectives. Non-linear timelines. Interconnected narratives. A brilliant and unique premise. Cinematic influences and references galore. Coming off of his previous film Barbarian (2022), another film with a Russian doll plot that keeps surprising you the further down the labyrinth you go, Cregger has made a film that blankets over multiple genres, and balances every one brilliantly from beginning to end.

At 2:17pm, 17 children, all from the same classroom in Maybrook, Pennsylvania, raise their arms horizontally and like soaring birds, sprint out of their homes and disappear. These children make up the near-entirety of Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) classroom, causing the neighborhood to suspect her of the mysterious event, despite there being no explanation. Gandy becomes a pariah in her neighborhood, taunted by her student’s father Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), mildly supported by her principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong), and in a complicated space with her friend/hook-up partner police officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich). Graff, driven by his emotions, is just looking for answers, taking matters into his own hands, though he and Gandy find it impossible to see eye to eye. Making matters more complicated is the fact that not all of Justine’s students disappeared. One boy by the name of Alex did in fact show up to school the next day and refuses to talk to Gandy, and all other adults, about what he knows. As more strange, violent events continue to happen in Maybrook, these characters must come together against all odds to investigate.

Much like last year’s The Brutalist, Cregger had assembled a much different cast before the SAG strike caused a major shift, but despite the cast he lost, his substitutes were brilliantly and seamlessly chosen. Garner is deeply empathetic and tough-as-nails, burdened with her situation and too quick to turn to alcohol to wash away her problems. Brolin, while perhaps too old for the part at 57, still manages to work great in the role of a grieving father. Adding a movie star presence, and surprising heroic likability, Brolin delivers heartbreaking nuance and a few unexpected laughs amongst the horror and suspense. Ehrenreich is wonderfully complicated, understandable in his frustrations with his job (occasionally chasing down a local junkie James, played by the delightfully wiry Austin Abrams) and relationship with Justine, and always teetering a thin line between rational and irrational. Cary Christopher is immensely impressive as the haunted and stoic young Alex, whose role gets more important as the film goes on.

The performance that will be talked about the most is a deliciously demented mystery woman played by Amy Madigan. Completely unrecognizable, by way of “what if Kathryn Hunter played a Roald Dahl illustration of the love child of Pennywise the Clown and the female Gremlin”. There is nothing to be said about her character that should be said for those that haven’t seen the film. Her first appearance is startling and her role becomes more strange, unsettling, threatening, and somehow funnier as the film reaches its batshit conclusion.

Cregger set out to make a spooky thriller, but that isn’t all Weapons has in store as a package. There are shades of Spielberg with its suburbia setting and questioning town of locals as well as the slight “Zelda Rubinstein in Poltergeist” nature of Madigan’s character. There is heavy influence from Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece Magnolia with the script’s structure, precise and rapid-pace editing and music cues, and characters that feel modeled almost directly from Anderson’s film (Ehrenreich is a spitting image of John C. Reilly’s officer Jim Kurring, Cary Christopher is identical casting to the young Jerry Blackman’s Stanley). There is even a direct and unmistakable visual reference to Kubrick’s The Shining. But the influences only add to the film’s melting pot of brilliant ideas. Its premise already has the perfect pitch, introduced right in the film’s opening with no time wasted, allowing the rest of the film’s following two hours to be peppered with surprises, carefully constructed characters, and non-stop intrigue. Original horror has been thriving lately, sometimes even transcending the genre, and Weapons is yet another example of a film that is actively trying to do more than what you expect. The type of original filmmaking that makes it exciting to go to the movies again.