Form follows function, argument follows thesis, and terror follows allegory. At least that’s how the last decade or so of horror flicks have progressed, turning the genre into a bifurcated ecosystem, with alternate goals of splattering as much blood and guts across the screen as possible, or arriving in theaters with a term paper in hand. Gore is still a reliable ticket seller, but for every gushing artery, there seem to be two treatises on grief (The Babadook), systemic racism (Get Out), parasitic relationships (Together), and trauma (see: every A24 frightener of the last 15 years). The upshot is clear as day, with fledgling filmmakers flexing their thematic and technical muscles at a relatively modest price point, receiving accolades for trenchant explorations while their backers reap the benefits of a dependably lucrative apparatus. If there’s a complaint to be leveled at this bright spot of post pandemic cinema, which shows no signs of slowing, it’s the vanishing appetite for studios to finance more plot-forward offerings, with Hollywood greenlights favoring pitches from places both high and low, but omitting the middle ground almost entirely. Not every classy production comes with a neatly organized syllabus, and naughtier thrills needn’t be exclusive to slapped-together cash grabs. We can still have it all, and Zach Cregger is here to show us how.

It starts with a tantalizing entry point, and the writer/director’s latest, Weapons, has one for the ages in the form of a recent tragedy in the small town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania. As explained via voiceover in a gorgeous opening montage, nearly an entire classroom’s worth of third graders has recently disappeared, having woken up and walked out of their front doors at the very same time in the middle of the night. Only Alex (Cary Christopher) remains, casting the boy in a spotlight of suspicion that pales in comparison to the one facing the youngsters’ teacher, Ms. Gandy (Julia Garner). Looking to free her name of sinister speculation, the nascent educator turns amateur detective, with her civilian sleuth act mirrored by Archer (Josh Brolin), whose son is counted among the missing.

At least that’s how it starts, but aligning with any one character woven into the narrative fabric of Weapons is a fool’s gambit. Dolled out in six chapters, each titled after a new player within the plot’s sprawling assemblage of participants, the film hop-scotches back and forth in both chronology and perspective, constantly revisiting scenes with additional information and a fresh set of eyes. Cregger has been open about using Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia as a source of inspiration, and while the ensemble approach, and its even-handed execution, cinches the comparison, the structure here is all early Tarantino. Tripling down on auteur-driven lineage, the gloomy suburbs and spiraling parents call to mind Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, but before chiding Cregger as a simple rider of coattails, it’s worth considering each reference point’s placement within its given director’s filmography. Rather than take aim at There Will Be Blood, Inglourious Basterds, or Sicario, he’s coming through the side door, favoring a tone and arrangement that’s a bit more obtuse than those filmmakers’ latter day classics.

He might even come in through a window if you’re not watching closely enough, as Weapons takes constant delight in upending our expectations, each new scene seeming to build itself from scratch. If the roving protagonist format doesn’t always yield the most vividly-drawn personas, it ensures that Cregger is always a few steps ahead of his audience, ushering us away from familiar story beats the second they start to take hold. It also allows the helmer to move fluidly through genres, flitting between the tropes of addiction dramas, police procedurals, and stoner comedies without ever fully escaping the foreboding shadow of its chiller/thriller umbrella. Vacillating this recklessly between styles and modes of operation requires some poor decision making on the part of the characters to keep the ball rolling, but Cregger positions nearly every bad idea as a product of overzealousness rather than sheer ineptitude. Logic and believability face a bit of strain, but it’s easier to champion players whose ill-conceived blunders come from a place of action, refusing to be bystanders as the yarn unspools.

That head full of steam wouldn’t matter if the adjoining faces didn’t capture our attention, a feat that the roving chorus here could accomplish in their sleep. Steady turns from dependable thespians like Brolin, Benedict Wong, and Alden Ehrenreich give the movie a sturdy base from which to operate, but Garner owns the first half by keeping us at arm’s length. At once tremulously fragile and willfully chaotic, she leverages her innocent appearance and percolating disdain to form a person whose descent into addled self-defeat feels tragic without stooping to condescension. She’s bettered in the second half by Amy Madigan, filling an interloper role that’s too integral to the mystery to spoil here, but let’s get her Oscar campaign started right away. Garner can ride in the side car.

After all, it’s not their fault that Weapons makes a third act pivot that’s certain to alienate viewers, turning from ground-bound dramaturgy into something much less tangible, and doing so on a dime. This is the rare instance in which deft implementation might not be enough to carry lesser notions over the line; on its own merits, the film’s closing section absolutely sings, succeeding on the back of Madigan’s performance and Cregger’s facility with rigid tension and frigid lensing, but it inherently feels like a betrayal of all that’s come before. The same charges could be leveraged just as easily against its horror bonafides writ large, which, for the majority of the runtime, seem siphoned in from an entirely different feature, dutifully filling a jump scares quota inside a flick that’s ever more present when functioning as a humanist drama. Even the sequences of gory violence feel like the completion of a mandate, affixed to a tale for which they have no organic origin or use.

They’re largely unnecessary, especially when parcelled out in a movie that’s already frosty enough to see your own breath. ‘Lynchian’ is too often used as shorthand for anything spooky whose genesis comes from outside the margins, but cinematographer Larkin Seiple meets the Twin Peaks-y moment with a slew of lurid, indelible images whose weight is equaled only by their stickiness. A dream sequence involving Brolin ends in a rudimentary shock, but not before landing on an unexplained visual straight from the subconscious, and the dreamy doom of scenes involving children sprinting in the background and a tortured dinner table conversation tattoo themselves onto the brain. The pinnacle, which sees those same youths running through the night with their arms outstretched, mixes innocence with dread in a manner that’s instantly iconic. Even if the movie eventually fades from public consciousness, those boys and girls playing airplane into a darkened oblivion is here to stay.

Not everything is so irrefutable, and the grand conclusion, while ecstatic and riotous, declines the option to be truly upsetting. There’s no answer that could possibly be as disturbing as none at all, and Cregger’s decision to provide one clarifies his aims, choosing excitement and propulsion over anything genuinely dire. Cries of copping out or falling short will be heard, just as Anderson fielded the same blow back in 1999. Magnolia still carries a mixed reputation, with both passionate believers and sighing detractors in tow, but back in the 90s, it was easier to cast aside the ambitious mixed bag and wait patiently for the next one. They’ve all but disappeared nowadays, making Weapons invaluable despite its faults, and possibly even because of them. Squint to find themes of modern day witch hunts and the alarming impressionability of the young if you must; Cregger has provided fodder for more high falutin readings, but they’re never his priority. Weapons is titillating, nerve-wracking, and joyous in its unpredictability. Leave your notebooks and collegiate robes at home; this one lives in the moment.