Weapons

WEAPONS   **1/2

Zach Cregger

2025

IDEA:  A Pennsylvania town reels after the mysterious disappearance of a classroom of children - with just one left behind.

*LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*

BLURB:  Weapons begins with an intriguing, metaphor-rich premise and ends having skirted it in the muddiest ways possible. Somewhere along the way, amid the digressive chapters of its hyperlink narrative structure, the film becomes estranged from not only its fertile subtextual possibilities, but from the very driving force of its setup. It’s not hard to discern where Cregger is trying to go with many of his ideas. Beyond the central allegory of a school shooting (clumsily underscored in some half-baked dream imagery), Weapons is dealing with grief, tribalism, scapegoating, addiction, parasitism, and the institutional apathy of adults toward the suffering of children. The last of these, which is arguably at the heart of the film, is more stated than shown, and the other themes, similarly under-explored, rarely find lasting purchase in the plot or the relationships of the thinly-sketched characters. By the time Weapons goes full-blown supernatural, any coherent allegorical reading has been made virtually impossible. As a Grand Guignol genre exercise, though, the film is a lot of fun. The nonlinear storytelling and visceral use of subjective camerawork keep you on your toes, and Cregger has some clever misdirects up his sleeve (the introduction of a possessed, ravenous Marcus preceding Paul’s injury by a hypodermic needle is particularly suggestive). Even though her character only obscures whatever it is the movie is trying to say, Amy Madigan is transfixing as Aunt Gladys, adding an uncanny primitive whimsy to the trope of the sadistic child-hating crone. And maybe it’s worth seeing alone for the image of 17 children bursting through the windows of a house in monomaniacal pursuit of her. But for such a potent image, and in a film putatively on their side, why does Weapons so rarely think of the children?

Lurker

LURKER   ***1/2

Alex Russell

2025

IDEA:  Retail worker Matthew goes to extreme lengths to worm his way into the life and career of burgeoning British pop star Oliver.

BLURB:  With taut storytelling and caustic humor, Lurker conveys the sense of a reality warped by the twin influences of celebrity culture and social media. In this simulacral world, ego and social currency are contingent on likes and follows, visibility is tantamount to fame, and user engagement becomes reified as personal connection. It’s neither healthy for the stans nor the stars, as writer-director Alex Russell makes searingly evident in the toxic symbiosis between Matthew and Oliver. The pair may initially be divergent in terms of status, but it soon becomes clear that they are two sides of the same coin: insecure, emotionally needy young men united by a hunger for attention and external validation that both can supply. Their increasingly codependent relationship blurs the boundaries between fan and celebrity, consumer and creator, pursuer and object, generating a potent ambiguity as well as a pathos that suggests both are victims of the same deranging media ecosystem. What do authenticity, originality, and talent look like in such a performative and homogenized culture? Lurker asks this of its protagonists, and is thornily inconclusive. Russell makes us as dubious about Oliver's artistry as Matthew's feelings toward it, and raises questions about the nature of tastemaking in an industry ruled by trends. Théodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe add entrancingly to the semantic uncertainty. In mercurial performances that limn the dark undercurrents of homosociality, their line deliveries about true callings sit somewhere between awkward expressions of earnest sentiment and parodies of rote marketing-speak. If you can’t tell the difference online, how can you be expected to in real life?