The Film Experience

In the Split Decision series, our writers pair up and face off on an Oscar-nominated movie one loves and the other doesn't or has mixed feelings about. Tonight, JUAN CARLOS and NATHANIEL discuss Weapons.

WEAPONS © Warner Bros

JUAN CARLOS: Hi, Nathaniel! The last time we did a Split Decision together was for Killers of the Flower Moon. Also about the horrors of American society, but we're now faced with a different kind of horror.

Where do we start? People thought Weapons was just part of the boom that the genre is experiencing right now (never out of style, by the way). There was considerable fanfare since the director's previous work was the cult hit Barbarian back in 2021. And lo and behold, a surprise hit on all accounts. Personally, it took me a while to convince myself to watch the film. Not the biggest fan of watching horror in cinemas (weird, but I do love the experience of watching horror films with my mom at home). But the advanced praise on Amy Madigan was enough for me to go to the cinemas. I thought she was phenomenal and am personally rooting for her to win the Oscar (in a solid lineup for Supporting Actress) and the film itself... hmmm.

The structural gambit was curious for me, but I think it paid off at least once we get to the story behind Gladys, the woman at the center of all this ruckus. There is a storytelling savvy in this film that doesn't necessarily translate to direct scares, but enough just to put me on the edge. The perspectives just a bit lopsided, the camera lingers just a bit too long, and the violence just a bit too much. These tangents heighten the delicious unease that I felt. I do believe that when it gets a bit too measured and strategic, that can be a con at times (how many shifts do we need to get to the core of the story), but it is horrifying and it stays. A big part of that is Madigan, but the film around here isn't shoddy too.

But blah blah blah, enough of me. I'm curious since I know you're an actressexual (duh) but I am not entirely familiar with your relationship with the genre. We're here so I'm assuming you're on the opposite end of my liking with this film, but I'm curious to see how far (or not) our opinions are on this film.

NATHANIEL: I think we're supposed to be pro & con on this but I do like the movie so maybe we're more pro-enthusiatic and pro-mixed? It's so funny that you mention your resistance to seeing it in the first place. I felt the same. I had zero interest but somehow I ended up there on opening weekend. All week long people kept telling me they couldn't wait to see it -- several of those people weren't even people who would normally talk to me about movies. At first I was rolling my eyes internally (my thought balloon doing a self-pitying 'doesnt anyone care about non-horror movies anymore? No one cares about a healthy all-genres cinema culture!!!!' ). I assumed everyone was going to Freakier Friday on Friday and that it would win the weekend (I already had my ticket). Horror is absolutely not my genre -- I only go if I get a strong sense that the movie won't be too gorey for me or that critics are loving them or that an actor I love who happens to be in it is not just collecting a paycheck (i.e. never opening weekend).

I don't usually care or pay attention to box office but it's funny to me that I saw three movies that weekend and they were the top three domestically: On Friday afternoon I saw Fantastic Four (#3) a second time (I love it so much). On Friday night I went to Freakier Friday (#2) though I had to do some work to get the boyfriend to join me (the work was showing him the 2003 movie which is still so much better than it ever had any business being and Jamie Lee Curtis 1000% deserved an Oscar nomination for it). Then on Sunday once I realized that a few of my friends were ALSO eager to see it, I caved and joined them at Weapons (#1). I had seen the mysterious running airplane children visual hook in a commercial and on the poster but otherwise I went in fully blind. I didn't know Zach Cregger's filmography and had no concept that Amy Madigan was in it; she had been well hidden in the promotional efforts. The enthusiasm about Madigan was, thus, 100% organic which is always a great feeling during award season. The last time was, who? Maybe Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom?

I resisted the structure at first. And found it kind of annoying / cheap that I was getting a child's narration that was supposed to make me intrigued and feel spooky. Something about it seemed too effortful or hand-holding in the condescending way adults sometimes speak to children. And curiously one thing I loved-loved- loved about Madigan's performance is that she doesn't speak to an actual child (Cary Christopher) in the way adults often do, despite terrorizing him. In fact, she speaks more plainly to him than she does adults she meets. Anyway, slowly I got sucked in. It was really the actors who did that for me (even before the Madigan reveal). I think the film is brilliantly cast and everyone is justright. And of course Madigan is phenomenal in it. I could see my friends trying to place her (and I admit it took me a couple of scenes... which is really unusual for me), It was only after we left the theater and I told them some things she'd been in they were like 'oh, yeah...her') She's been out of the spotlight for so long I think the bulk of Weapons viewers probably had no idea who she was. But I think it really adds to the movie, perhaps in an unintentional way, for those moviegoers who do have memories of her; she is immediately both familiar and alien. It's another kind of disorientating power the movie has in addition to the ways you mentioned that it unsettles you.

The first and the goriest murder in WEAPONS

But I didn't love the picture. I understand horror movies are going to come with some violence but I had a ton of problems with the scene where the principal murders his lover. It genuinely felt homophobic to me. The depiction of the couple was kind of cutesy and then the violence so explicit and grotesque. No other violence in the movie is lingered on that long or shown so explicitly. I wondered (perhaps uncharitably) if Cregger was enjoying it too much, you know? It turned me against the movie. Eventually I came back around but still...

JUAN CARLOS: Well, look at that: in the middle of our chat, Amy Madigan takes another step closer to the Oscar with her win at the SAG Awards! (Never calling it its new name.)

Okay, so I was a bit nervous that we were put together to disagree on a film that I'm actually pro-non-enthusiastic? Haha. But I will, in my own assessment and perspective on the film, have to respectfully disagree on that point that you raised. I do not think the murder of the gay couple was homophobic. I'm not the one fully cognizant of the filmmaker's background on this scene (I think it's out there somewhere) so I'm just going to base the text and its context within the film. Marcus and Telly (the school principal and his husband) are perhaps the most tangentially connected characters from the main storyline that's why the initial shift to Marcus's perspective felt puzzling at first. And once we see the nature of their relationship — and it's an endearing one, presented at times like a couple straight out of a romantic comedy — I even questioned the direction the story was taking. But once Gladys enters Marcus's story, the tonal shifts become more intentional and discomforting. The scene in question where Gladys enters their home and unleashes her horror, it's a horrifying explosion precisely because this is the first instance of the film explicitly presenting Gladys as the monster that she truly is. And the first victims we see turn out to be a loving gay relationship. I received it not as an example of the filmmaker's homophobia but more on the level of viciousness of Gladys as a character. For me, it's a shocking scene but it is loaded with purpose in terms of filmmaking and also of character-building. Even the character of Gladys becomes a compass for the film's tonal whiplashes.

What do you think?

NATHANIEL: I hear you on an intellectual and structural level as to why it was effective but it still left a horrible taste in my mouth beyond it's narrative purpose. I think it was just how explicity graphic it was when the other violence wasn't. Even Aunt Gladys' demise is less gruesome and films generally love to watch the villain get theirs in the end.

What did you think of the narration? This is another thing that didn't quite work for me. I understand presenting it through a child so it becomes like a Grimm fairy tale (the original gruesome kind) but I also though it was too much to have a framing device of after-the-fact storytelling AND a time loop structure when you're circling back to things from different perspective. It made the screenplay feel a bit rough-drafty like it was trying to do too many things at once. Like what is it you want to say and how is it that you want to say it? That said for as unfinished as it felt to me in some ways I really want to point out Nick Davis' review because he gets at a kind of subliminal political suggestion that I didn't think about while watching but has haunted me ever since (and made me want to rewatch the move a little, too).

JUAN CARLOS: I like the narration, though it's not a choice that I feel strongly about. If anything, it adds a folkloric texture to it, as if this story is real but is not officially recognized. Rather, it is a narrative that is to be passed on more discreetly due to fear and suppression. Am I overreading it? Maybe, but at least that gives the film the more evidently political layer to it. I do admire screenplays that overreach, whether it ultimately works or not. The retelling aspect and the time loop factor worked for me *eventually*, although there were certainly moments where it felt gimmicky. The film demands patience for its structural gambit to pay off, but there was enough time for my personal doubts to surmise.

I do want to ask you about the other point you brought up though. Love Nick Davis forever and I'm glad you reminded me of his review. I'm fortunate that I live in a country where mass shootings are not a norm (unfortunately, the Philippines are plagued with other forms of violence and no less bloody). How does that subtext register to you as an American viewer? Because it does feel like the film wants to get to that point (with the AR-15 assault rifle floating above a house becoming one of the film's strongest images) but then it swerves into another direction for most of its runtime. As someone with nary a social context, it felt like a MacGuffin. But referencing Nick's review, maybe there is a larger point to get to. How did you receive that?

NATHANIEL: To be honest, I had forgotten the image. Partially I think because it didn't quite hit me immediately what I was looking at -- blame dimly lit nighttime cinematography and getting used to that 2:17 image from the alarm clocks). But also I want to claim that not immediately clocking it or forgetting it entirely is just how desensitized we have become to guns in the US. It's really a grotesque stain on the country that we've let ourselves come this.

I don't think it's a MacGuffin, though, now that you've jogged my memory. What disappears a roomful of children faster in the US? One of the strengths of genre pictures in general -- but horror tends to take fuller advantage -- is their easier access to metaphor. When you're not going for strict naturalism, as too many movies do, a heightened quality can get the audience there much quicker. I do really admire that the movie takes lots of big swings like this. On the other hand the general feeling I have of Weapons is that it doesn't always feel in control of itself. Like maybe it has its own Gladys problem. I'm not talking about a lack of mastery within the scenes but in the overall cohesive of themes and story. It has a lot on its mind but it occassionally feels like we're dealing with multiple drafts of the same screenplay... but maybe not a final draft? With the big swings sometimes the bat goes flying, too.

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