Warner Bros. has kept “Weapons,” its new original horror movie from “Barbarian” director Zach Cregger, close to the chest when it came to providing early looks to the majority of the entertainment press. Still, IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio did finally get a chance to see the movie earlier this week, which is about 17 schoolchildren from the same class who go missing in the dead of night in a small town, leaving just one classmate behind.
And, lo and behold, it’s a brilliantly entertaining and twisty movie that Warner Bros. ought to want more critics and press to see.
The cast is terrific — Julia Garner as an alcoholic teacher bucking under mental torture by her students’ parents, Alden Ehrenreich as a mustachied cop, Josh Brolin as a brawny grieving dad, and Austin Abrams as a twitchy druggie who may have stumbled on the key to the mystery. Cregger’s direction and work with cinematographer Larkin Seiple are fluid, propulsive, and accomplished even despite juggling a sizable ensemble of cracked characters.
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It’s projected to open north of $25 million this weekend, up against “Freakier Friday” in the battle for #1. That Disney sequel — reportedly originally meant for streaming only until fan reaction compelled the studio to opt for theaters — is a movie Anne Thompson is less fond of. (Ryan missed it.)
On this week’s episode, we also take a close look at which movies aren’t playing the fall festivals, and why: Whither “Die My Love,” possibly back in the edit after mixed reviews out of Cannes? Searchlight’s “The Roses” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” (also at Warner Bros.) look to be commercial plays, along with Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing” at Sony. All bowed out of the fall festival circuit.
Elsewhere on this week’s installment, we also review new TV, including “Wednesday” and “Alien: Earth,” and pitch our dream Bond for the just-announced writer, Steven Knight, who will pen the next 007 movie for director Denis Villeneuve at Amazon/MGM Studios. Knight and Villeneuve share a penchant for antiheroes — and that’s who the original messy, toxic, twisted Bond was, anyway, right? Well, before Daniel Craig — and we think they’d share a unique alchemy in carrying the Bond torch.
Listen to the episode below.
