★★★

There are echoes of the Jordan Peele in Zach Cregger’s ascendancy from sitcom frequenter to horror messiah. Indeed, much as was the case for Peale’s Get Out, Cregger already finds himself proclaimed the voice of his jump scare generation after just one frightener. In some quarters, at least. That first round – a satiating palette teaser if ever one were – was 2022’s big-time over-performer Barbarian, AirBnb thriller and bidding war instigator. Indeed, Cregger’s sophomore potential lured even Peele himself from the woodwork. Peele’s failure to secure Cregger’s script proved so crushing to him that it would ultimately see him split from his management. Contentious stuff but perhaps unsurprising. More has been spent on Weapons than Barbarian made in profit. It’s not just the expectation that’s high with this one, then. 

For the most part, the film delivers. A fairy tale nasty with a killer hook and a clutch of terrific central performances. Each gets a turn in the spotlight, with a multi-chapter framework and perspective-driven photography allowing for a slow drip, if disparate, release of narrative truths and tension. Cinematographically speaking, Weapons proves Barbarian to have been no fluke. Cregger’s eye for the unnerving remains striking, with shot after shot cruising into the memory. There’s a thrilling nighttime long shot that holds firm as the foe draws in, while early footage of the missing children fleeing their homes can’t help but echo the distressing image of Vietnam’s Napalm Girl, mixed with a little of the Spielbergian innocence.

The visuals grow only more disturbing as the film’s first hour creeps into its second. Shared too, however, are the scripting construction flaws that held Barbarian back from the very upper echelons of horror. It’s all a little too self-conscious in design and, what with the haunted house, creepy kids and witchy undertones…perhaps too obvious? A melange of tropes, terrifically executed, but somewhat incongruous in deployment.

At 2:17 A.M. in the town of Maybrook, seventeen children from the same class simultaneously leave their homes and vanish. Only two remain. There’s young Alex Lily (Cary Christopher), wide eyed, shell shocked, saying nothing and claiming ignorance. Alex came to school as normal that day but, between his eccentric Aunt and darkened home, something feels decidedly off. The other survivor – early in the film, clear allegorical parallels are drawn between the children’s disappearance and the real world classroom massacres that belie justification for America’s lax gun laws – is Julia Garner’s gamine Miss Gandy. Thirty days on, angry parents cry fowl at her protestations of innocence, mobbing her appearances at the school and debasing her life outwit it.

Miss Gandy’s is the first, and most compelling, of the film’s pocketed perspectives. Fragility and fire drive her between the bottle and a compulsion to learn the truth. Other angles come from a philandering police officer (Alden Ehrenreich), a homeless drug addict (Austin Abrams), the school’s inept principal (Benedict Wong), and the father of one of the missing children (Josh Brolin). The conceit has perks but increasingly frustrates, stealing the audience of the opportunity to follow the mystery to its natural apex through the surrogacy of a central protagonist. Each chapter takes us a step back, with each new character less cognoscente of the progression than their predecessor.

Cregger plays his hand sooner than one might expect, bursting the mystery and thrusting his film down an entertainingly grim left field. It’s a kitchen sink approach that delivers big on schlock and nauseous thrill to the occasional expense of logic and a sharper sleight of hand. Having opened with such pointed potential, this can’t help but feel a shame, Cregger punching a mite lower than he might have been able to with a firmer hand on the rudder.

T.S.