Weekend Mullings: Weapons | It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley

Perhaps I shouldn't be comparing the films of Zach Creggar with those of Oswald Perkins, but coming out of Weapons, Creggar's follow-up to Barbarian, that comparison rattled around in my mind. They've both released some very buzzed-about horror movies, but so far I've appreciated the work of one way more than the other. Both have an obvious love for the genre, and can craft a creepy scene. But only one has managed to balance the horror and the comedy in their films, and the clear winner there is Creggar.

But what probably set-off the comparison is that there are a few small things in Weapons that are very similar to a few things in Perkins's Longlegs, but where I found Longlegs to be derivative, predictable, and rarely scary, Weapons had me cringing in my seat, and I could never really guess what was going to happen next.

I think it's best to go into it knowing as little as possible, as the story is laid out in chapters that eventually complete the puzzle of just what has happened to the 17 kids in a small town who all decided to leave their homes at 2:17am one night, and vanish into the night. (Scoring this scene with George Harrison's song "Beware of Darkness" turns the moment into a poetic nightmare.)

That all of the students who disappeared were in the same class immediately places their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), under suspicion, especially by Archer (Josh Brolin), the gruff father of one of the missing kids. That Justine has a drinking problem and unresolved issues with an ex (Alden Ehrenreich), who is also a police office, only complicates matters. 

Other characters who make up the chapters in the story include the school's principal (Benedict Wong), a junkie in town (Austin Abrams), and wildest of all, a character played by Amy Madigan, who I promise you will not recognize when she first shows up.

Weapons has creepy dreams, jump scares, gore, but best of all, a sense of humor that is well placed throughout, and that's probably where some people may take issue with Creggar's approach. But I've always preferred horror that has a good sense of humor, and Weapons wields its humor well.

I'm not the only person who can say Grace, Jeff Buckley's only studio album, has gotten them through some rough life events. I mean, it contains two of the greatest breakup songs ever written, "Last Goodbye" and "Lover, You Should've Come Over," and perhaps the best version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" ever recorded, so of course it has. And when an album plays such a big part in your life, it's often easy to think, well, everyone in the world must know about it too.

But I do wonder if the kids making TikToks backed by "Lover..." actually know anything about the man behind the song. Perhaps the new documentary It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley will change that. 

Director Amy Berg's approach doesn't really do anything new with the genre, but what is unique is that the movie examines Buckley primarily through the eyes of three women in his life, his mother, Mary Guibert, who raised him after his father, musician Tim Buckley, left them to pursue fame, and two girlfriends, one who was there at the beginning of his career, and one who was there closer to the end of his life.

His story is also told through Buckley's own words, using clips from archival interviews, and most poignantly, long voicemail messages. The one he leaves his mother shortly before he died proves he was probably a soul just too good for this world.