Halloween 2025: September 16th

 

Weapons (2025)

After "Barbarian" became the surprise horror hit of 2022, Zach Cregger immediately went from merely a member of a cult favorite sketch comedy team to the hottest up-and-coming genre director in Hollywood. The press seemed incapable of not comparing Creggor's career path to that of friend Jordan Peele. Well, Creggor didn't win an Oscar for "Barbarian" but his next script – a so-called "horror epic" entitled "Weapons" – did result in a highly publicized bidding war between studios. Despite all the buzz around "Weapons," lips remained tightly sealed concerning the film's actual premise. As the marketing machine started to roll and trailers came out, only the inciting incident of the story remained revealed. I guess everyone realized that "Barbarian" prospered greatly from gaining a "go in knowing as little as possible" reputation online. Clearly, this mysterious approach worked, as "Weapons" became a proper blockbuster this past August. As with Creggor's first hit, I somehow managed to enter the theater without learning too much about it. Was the effort to avoid spoilers worth it? 

In the autumn of 2023, at 2:17 A.M., seventeen children in the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania left their homes and never returned. All the kids were part of teacher Justine Grady's third grade class with only one, Alex Lilly, arriving at his desk the next day. The local police scrambled to undercover answers but found none. Justine becomes the target of heavy scrutiny and harassment from the parents of the missing children, insisting she must somehow be responsible, but she's as clueless as everyone else. She becomes concerned about Alex and attempts to reach out to him, despite being barred from doing so by the school principal. Archer Graff, father of one of the missing boys, begins to pursue his own investigation. He also determines that the Lilly household is at the center of the enigma. Justine's ex-boyfriend and local cop Paul, her boss at the school, a crackhead named James, and Alex's peculiar Aunt Gladys all become entangled in the mystery as well in increasingly violent ways.  

"Barbarian" started out as a writing exercise for Creggor who, dissatisfied with the direction of the scene, then introduced a wild twist. The rest of the film spun out of that swerve. "Weapons" has a somewhat similar approach, while also drawing from the novel-like structure of "Magnolia." The film is broken into seven chapters, each one following the perspective of a different character. The timeline traces back and forth, sometimes showing the same events from different points-of-view. Creggor often ends each segment with a cliffhanger or exciting reveal, each part of the film only giving the audience a little more information about what exactly is going on here. It is a script designed to draw you ever-more into this narrative, while always having another unexpected twist or shocking event up its sleeve. Two features in and it's clear that this kind of playful storytelling is Creggor's style. Maybe he's a writer with a short attention span who has to repeatedly shift directions in the story to keep himself interested. It's certainly a clever way to catch the viewer's attention and keep us off-guard. 

"Barbarian's" twists were outrageous in nature, a slow-burn battle of the sexes thriller suddenly becoming a monster movie and then shifting towards finding the parallels in the #MeToo era and small town horrors such as those committed by Ariel Castro. "Weapons" is much more of a mystery, presenting us and the characters with a haunting series of disappearances. The film gets a lot of mileage out of shadowy nighttime shots of kids Naruto running out of their houses and into the dark. Starting with Justine's perspective, a baffled bystander who is too empathetic to stop looking into what happened, allows the viewer to also come into the story from the side. We are also an outsider to what is happening here. Archer, meanwhile, is obsessed with uncovering the truth, pushing his wife away and failing at his job as he devotes every waking minute to finding his boy. He looks for clues, re-watching the doorbell camera footage of his son running away and badgering other parents for similar evidence. These are two people at odds with each other but they are both compelled by a search for answers. It's the kind of narrative hook that you can't help but get caught up in too, like any sort of puzzling true crime incident. 

Both of them are also haunted by nightmares centered around the crime. The most beguiling of which has Archer seeing a massive assault rifle emerging from the sky. When paired with a story involving a communities of parents who are enraged, confused, and desperate over the sudden loss of their children, some pressing real world issue come to mind. Is “Weapons” inspired by the unending wave of school shootings we have in this country? Justine being wrongfully targeted as having some sort of responsibility for what happened, meanwhile, brings stories of the mourning parents of dead children being harassed by unhinged conspiracy theorists. Archer's behavior certainly resembles the Sandy Hill Truthers and PizzaGate crowd, with the way he obsessively searches video and images for clues only he can see. There's other ideas floating around inside Cregger's film, concerning police accountability and abuse of power, which could also tie into these themes. Instead, after a fascinating first half steeped in mystery, “Weapons” turns towards providing concrete – albeit supernatural – answers to most of its questions, none of which address these real world parallels. As someone who was, just yesterday, complaining about how modern horror films foreground their subtext at the sacrifice of scares, maybe I shouldn't be complaining about this. Nevertheless, “Weapons” is more compelling when presenting its mystery than when resolving it. 

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy “Weapons.” I did, a lot. Creggor's film trusts the audience in a way that most horror movies released by New Line Cinema these days usually don't. Strictly through visual means, the mechanics of the otherworldly forces at work here are explained. This pays off especially nicely in the last act, when a child grasps the same system of sympathetic magic practically intuitively. Further more, there are hints throughout concerning the nature of parasites. It is briefly discussed in Justine's class room and a pair of supporting characters watch a documentary about ophiocrodyceps in ants. Both of which give us an idea of the villain's motivation without spelling it out via blunt exposition. In general, “Weapons” is a very assured film. Joe Murphy's editing is tight. Larkin Seiple's cinematography is moody. The soundtrack, from the Holladay brothers, is a little heavy on the discordant ambiance but works more often than not. Much like “Barbarian,” this takes some wild tonal turns in its second half. There's explosive moments of brutal gore, more painful and subtler scenes of bodily injury, before the film veers towards a mad cap sense of high-energy retribution at its climax.

Part of why I felt “Weapons” dropped off a little in its second half is because I found its first two protagonists so much more compelling than its other ones. The script does a very good job of making Justine and Archer complex, layered human beings. Without tediously detailing her backstory, we learn that Justine is a recovering and often relapsing alcoholic. She's made some mistakes in the past but they are often centered around her desire to help people, in her own insistent way. Julia Garner – who is having quite the year – does an excellent job of creating this fail-daughter who is trying her best. Garner makes Justine's frustration and stubbornness amusing and relatable, rather than annoying. While Archer does some shitty things throughout the story, Josh Brolin's performance makes sure to center the pain he feels as a dad that's let down his only child. There's a deep-seated self-loathing to his actions, this sense that he's failed in his goals and now is desperate to make up for them. The rest of the cast is quite solid as well. Benedict Wong gets a few laughs as the person reacting to a lot of the unlikely shit. Austin Abrams is especially amusing as a tweaker always on the search for his next easy buck. Amy Madigan vacillates nicely between a seemingly harmless old lady and a much colder, more sinister figure. I just wanted to know more about Justine and Archer. They were really compelling and the film ends with their arcs both feeling a little incomplete. 

An element of “Weapons” that I did find interesting is the way the camera lingers on brand names throughout. A can of Coke is centered early on. Campbell's chicken noodle soup shows up prominently in the second half. The bedroom of Archer's son is decorated with recognizable athletes and other pop culture figures. The Batman logo makes an interesting appearance. I don't think this an example of product placement or cross-corporate synergy. Another element emphasized in the film is the presence of cameras and recording devices. Everyone in town seemingly has Ring devices on their door bells. Phones are used throughout. A police officer's dash-cam is a plot point. This goes hand in hand with the presence of familiar, comforting brand names and the small town setting. The characters in “Weapons” are surrounded by modern convenience and have their every move recorded. It still doesn't protect their children. It doesn't make their law enforcement any more productive. It does not actually make them feel any safer. This is, perhaps, where the lingering undercurrent about school shootings and conspiracy theories actually build to something. That there is something very wrong in the American psyche, that violence and tragedy can still strike at any point despite all the measures we've taken to make ourselves feel more comfortable 

Another element “Weapons” has in common with Creggor's debut is that, as soon as the story is resolved, the film more-or-less ends. That, combined with the naturalistic way it hints at back story and focuses on being a swiftly paced horror story over any thematic concerns, makes it feel like a very eighties style sort of movie. You can imagine both this and “Barbarian,” in different forms, being actually made in the seventies or eighties. (Instead of merely being an attempt to replicate that style, like most throwback films try to do.) Normally, that would be exactly my kind of thing but I left “Weapons” wanting just a little bit more. That's probably a sign of its high quality, that this two hour and nine minute long film felt like it could have been a little bit longer to me. If nothing else, if New Line Cinema ever gets around to actually making a new “A Nightmare on Elm Street” movie, Creggor's clear ability to get at the heart of darkness underneath a small town's pleasant exterior might make him the guy for the job. Instead, he's rebooting “Resident Evil” next. Anyway, “Weapons” will probably play a lot better for me on a second viewing but it's still definitely a very strong motion picture. [7/10]

 

 

Monster from Green Hell (1957)

1957 was, as far as I can tell, the year the overgrown creepy crawler as a cinematic trope reached peak saturation. Within that twelve month period, a giant praying mantis terrorized D.C., an enormous scorpion leveled Mexico City, gigantic grasshoppers descended on Chicago, humongous mollusks emerged from the Salton Sea, and the crab monsters threatened the Pacific. Probably the least loved of that year's big bug offerings is “Monster from Green Hell.” I've known about the movie for years and always thought its premise, of kaiju-ified wasps, sounded cool. Regular small wasps are already scary! Imagine how freaky a tank-sized one would be! The film's overall low reputation has kept it near the bottom of my priority list. However, I've now worked my way through the better known – or at least more notorious – jumbo arthropod features, meaning its time I travel into the Green Hell myself and encounter something nastier than some white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. 

Dr. Brady and Dr. Morgan are carrying out experiments for the government, in which they send various animals into orbit around the planet to see how living organisms respond to cosmic radiation. They've noticed that the returning creatures tend to grow at an unusually fast rate. Also, one of their rockets – carrying wasps – recently fell off-course and crashed in central Africa. Shortly afterwards, Brady reads a news story about monsters emerging from the “Green Hell” region of Gabon. They travel to the jungle and, after a perilous hike of many days, arrive at the clinic of Dr. Lorentz. After the doctor is discovered killed by a giant stinger, it becomes apparent that the wasps have grown to enormous size. Brady, Morgan, a guide, and Lorentz' daughter head towards an active volcano to destroy the monsters from Green Hell before they take over the world. 

I was warned by multiple sources. “Monster from Green Hell” is a prime example of what Dave Sindelar called a “Double-Stuffed Safari-O.” This refers to a weirdly prevalent style of jungle adventure movie that was common – I don't know if I'd go so far as to say “popular” – among B-movies of the fifties. Essentially, it refers to films that generously pad out their runtime with stock footage of animals and tribes in the jungles of Africa or some other far-off, distant land. Rather than focus on the exciting business about the giant mutant wasps, director Kenneth G. Crane instead occupies most of the 71 minute runtime with that long walk through the African jungles. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Crane was more widely employed as an editor. His only prior directorial credit was the cut-up U.S. version of “Half Human,” which this film played on a double bill with.) Thrill at long, drawn out sequences of guys walking bordered on all sides by grainy stock footage of lions running around, elephants stampeding, African tribesmen performing ceremonies or go to war with each other, brush fires, and other thoroughly mundane nature footage. 

The writers responsible for “Monster from Green Hell” were duo Louis Vittes and Endre Bohem. These two would mostly write for television, with Vittes eventually tallying thirty-one episodes of “Rawhide.” He would also write “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” a year after this one and that movie is good. Whatever talent was at work there is not evident here. The script for “Monster from Green Hell” is dull stuff. Star Jim Davis is given a voice-over narration, flatly explaining a lot of what happens on-screen. Sometimes as it is happening. Every event that is going to happen is laboriously set-up in as obvious a fashion as possible. Hmm, I wonder if that rumbling volcano is going to be important later? Perhaps those special gas grenades that the characters spend a solid minute discussing will have a role to play at some point? When not laying extensive tracks down for future events, the script resorts to having people talk about stuff that happened off-screen. See how many times the African guide characters reiterate that the natives are not merely superstitious and that a monster in the jungle is real. 

It's utterly tedious stuff. A 1955 brief in Variety claimed that “Monster from Green Hell” had a budget of a million dollars, a luxurious amount of money by the standards of fifties monster movies. It's difficult to believe the finished production was working with that much cash. The movie keeps its star monsters off-screen for as long as possible. This is most painfully apparent in that volcano-set climax. After about a minute of screen time devoted to the giant wasps, the cast then get lost in a cave system, that taking up far more time than the big bugs! Yes, the giant puppets used to bring the wasps to life are fun. I like their big eyes and snapping mandibles. A couple of times, stop-motion effects are used to animate the beasts. Such as in a scene where a wasp fights and stings a giant boa constrictor. However, whatever grand vision the filmmakers had was clearly outside of their resources. You most associate wasps with flying, right? These oversized examples do much more hovering slowly over the ground rather than getting airborne. I guess they were too big for that...

There's exactly one scene in “Monster from Green Hell” that doesn't feel utterly compromised by a lack of money and imagination. When the heroes come across a native village that has been decimated by the monsters, we see a bunch of dead bodies laying on the ground around thatch huts. That's mildly effective. Otherwise, this is one long hour and eleven minutes with precious few scenes of common Apocrita mutated to enormous size by the effects of space radiation. Most of the big bug movies that followed stuck to the greatest hits, largely spiders, suggesting producers were quickly realizing how hard it was to make little bugs into creditable on-screen threats. Kenneth G. Grane would go on to direct “The Manster” before sticking to editing jobs up through the seventies. (One of his last credits was “Slaughter's Big Rip-Off.”) As for “Monster from Green Hell,” it would be forgotten by all but the most studious monster kids. Which means someone still made a model kit of its big bug but that's about it as far as the impact of this one goes. [3/10]

 

 

Scorpion Tales: Easterman

Here's another British thriller anthology, which ran for six episodes in 1978 and was so named because each installment featured a "sting in its tale." "Easterman" follows aging, alcoholic police detective Mavor. In-between his busy schedule of drunkenly badgering his coworkers and complaining about all the homosexuals in the world, he investigates the case of a man violently beaten. The man seems to connect to a crime he investigates years before. Soon afterwards, the assailant graduates from beatings to killings, sending taunting messages to the cops and calling himself "Easterman." In particular, he seems to be targeting Mavor personally. After a tense meeting with the gun totting murderer, he learns that "Easterman" wants revenge for the death of a romantic partner Mavor was responsible for years before. The cop's harassment of the local queer community has come back to haunt him. 

"Easterman" was a late starring role for beloved thespian Trevor Howard, of "The Third Man" and "Brief Encounter." And, oh boy, does he play an asshole. Mavor is introduced being giving a Breathalyzer test by another cop, which he rants extensively about. Not because he isn't drunk – he's very, very drunk – but because he considers it disrespectful for a man with as many years on the force as him to be under such scrutiny. This sets up the arc of a thoroughly despicable man who considers himself the arbiter of a world full of incompetence and sin. He later bitches out another officer for not taking proper evidence from a corpse. Pretty much everyone around Mavor is a victim of his withering glares and bitter speeches. He has no illusions about what a miserable bastard he is, not believing in God and expecting nothing but oblivion when he dies. It would seem his mission in becoming a police officer is based strictly in getting to tell other people what to do. This is obviously a vile protagonist and one that will surely get his comeuppance before the episode is over. "Easterman" would probably be a largely insufferable program if Trevor Howard wasn't such a compelling performer. He spits all of the old man's dialogue with absolute venom and seems to relish being given such colorful, elaborate paragraphs to read. He is a son-of-a-bitch but a very easy one to watch. 

For such a nihilistic fellow who regards the whole world as so contemptible, he's actually fairly quiet about his hatred of queer men. He does hate them, using slurs like "poofters" or "butt buddy" and regarding the owner of a gay bar with utter disgust. When saying any of his homophobic dialogue, Howard adapts a calm and matter-of-fact demeanor. As if gay men are so obviously worthy of scorn that it doesn't warrant special attention. This stands in contrast to the titular killer. When the Easterman states the motivating factors for his crimes, its largely the passion and love he felt for his fallen partner. As far as serial killers go, he's a fairly empathetic one. He outright refuses to kill the cop in the climatic moment, choosing to force him at gunpoint to drink himself to death, so his blood is not exactly on his hands. A scene where the killer forces the barrel of his shotgun into Mavor's mouth makes it clear that this is a transgressive attack by a cultural outsider against a condemning force of authority. I don't want to call "Scorpion Tales" progressive exactly. Our perspective is aligned with the homophobic cop and the gay villain is still rendered as a figure of fear. However, who is the more sympathetic character is self-evident. "Easterman" clearly has some thoughts on its mind about differing modes of masculinity, of who is the real honorable man in this situation. 

Based on the other episode of "Scorpion Tales" I've watched, the series does not fall exclusively within the horror genre. Intrigue seems to be the intended emotional response, not terror. However, "Easterman" is still creepy. When the killer first appears on-screen, he's wearing a skintight fetish mask that distorts the face in an uncanny fashion. That same confrontation takes place in an abandoned house on a windy moor, which certainly sets an eerie mood. That feeling is recaptured when the murderer confronts the cop in his home at the end. What exactly is meant to be the sting in this particular tale is not clearly conveyed. The ending is quite anticlimactic. The show also relies way too much on the otherwise extremely catchy theme music from Cyril Ornadel. The thumping, disco-influenced beat does not help build tension. Still, there is something to "Easterman" that is hard to dismiss. It reminds me a bit of "Cruising," which came out two years later, and similarly contrasts the violence of the hyper-macho world of policing with the private acts of gay men, albeit in a way much less suitable for broadcast television standards. [7/10]

The Addams Family: Uncle Fester, Tycoon
 

I reviewed the fifteenth episode of the “Addams Family's” second season, many Decembers ago as it was a Christmas themed installment. Let's jump ahead to the next one then, “Uncle Fester, Tycoon.” Love is in the air – or, more accurately, the mail box – for Fester again. He receives the photograph of a bearded lady he's been corresponding with. He likes her so much that he wants to marry her. Mortcia and Gomez are concerned about whether he can support a wife though. A wild plan ensues, Morticia dressing up as the bearded woman's mother to goad Fester into getting a job. He takes a by-mail course on business and, overnight, is seemingly transformed into a proper financial expert. Once again, one of the Addams' wacky schemes have worked too well and now Gomez and Morticia call in a doctor to get Fester's head checked... Right around the same time his new business partner is paying a visit to the home.

Yes, here's another episode of “The Addams Family” that starts out with one idea before rambling off in a totally different direction. The show has already done at least one episode in which Fester has a romance via writing letters. This is only used as a set-up for the actual premise of the episode, which is Fester deciding he's a business wunderkind after a few lesson. The final scene of the episode has the uncle admitting that he's forgotten all about his bearded love. (While also including a line that suggests Fester is open to same-gendered options. How progressive!) Uncle Fester suddenly getting way into business jargon, his family becoming concerned he's lost his original personality, is a fine idea for an episode, sure. However, I do think it's kind of odd that this change is spurned on by money concerns. It is true that Fester does not have a job but he's also part of a very rich family. Why would he need a profession? He might as well devote himself to his weird hobbies.

Perhaps picking apart this show for plot holes is not a wise decision. Instead, let's focus on the silly gags we are all here for anyway. This one has a couple of rich ones. Fester spontaneously answering his own phone call and getting into an argument with himself is some good ol' fashion clownery. The reveal that Morticia is going undercover as a bearded lady's mother – including her own little beard – produces a solid chuckle. The opening scene involves Gomez undergoing hypno-therapy from his wife and has nothing to do with anything but still made me laugh. The episode ends in a rather contrived miscommunication: Gomez and Morticia mistaking Fester's new business partner for his shrink. If nothing else, this puts a new spin on the by-now established joke of a normal person being unsettled by the Addams' macabre abode and freaky friends. Also, the epilogue features Cleopatra drinking milk from a straw and I declare that to be adorable. [6/10]