The mystery at the center of Weapons is not based on true events, but the narration that opens Zach Cregger’s latest film does have the capacity to fool you. Weapons is every bit the kind of story you’d hear as a child from another kid determined to creep you out — if not around a campfire, then in some quiet corner on a playground. Cregger’s young narrator insists that the story she’s about to tell is totally true, that it happened randomly in her sleepy Southern town of Maybrook, that a bunch of people perished in weird and crazy ways, and that authorities tried to cover it up after the fact. It’s an almost glib introduction to a story determined to explore the emptiness of grief — the loss of control, the abyss that stares back when you’re searching for real answers — and one just as brutally disturbing as Cregger’s horror debut, Barbarian. But the latter was also, at turns, laugh-out-loud funny. Its visual gags were designed to disarm, a kind of interlude before exploring the nightmare around the corner. And it’s no different in Weapons. Cregger’s follow-up is as haunting and cerebral as it is almost cartoonishly funny, producing a cocktail of emotions nearly as disarming as the film itself.Weapons’ central mystery is a platform for a scarier, cerebral horror. | New Line CinemaThe premise of Weapons is this: On a regular Wednesday morning, elementary school teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) walks into her classroom to find it totally empty. Save for the lonely, solitary Alex (Cary Christopher), every one of her students is missing. That’s because the night before, at 2:17 a.m., every child in Justine’s class woke and left their homes, Naruto-running into the night. Their escapes were recorded by porch cameras and security systems throughout the neighborhood, but the motive behind them remains unanswered. Law enforcement interrogates Alex to no avail, while Justine is forced to take a leave of absence from Maybrook Elementary. Despite her love for her students and her eagerness to uncover the truth, her presence only triggers the parents searching for their children, like the gruff Archer Graff (Josh Brolin). Archer is by far the most proactive, capable parent with a missing child, and one of a handful of characters whose perspective drives the story. Weapons takes the dueling perspectives Cregger used to such comedic effect in Barbarian and doubles — actually, triples — down. The film is divvied into six chapters, each of which follows a different character. We watch Justine struggle to accept her loss of control, to distance herself from her duties at school, in Chapter 1. Then there’s Archer and his obsession with uncovering the truth, a hapless cop (Alden Ehrenreich) struggling with his own demons, and a strung-out grifter (Austin Abrams) who stumbles headlong into the conspiracy plaguing Maybrook. With each new chapter, more is unlocked, peppered with as many gory shocks as they are with visceral physical comedy.Julia Garner and Josh Brolin play two flawed heroes grasping for control. | New Line CinemaCregger’s goofy sense of humor aside, Weapons is otherwise pretty understated, even refined. His camera moves with glacial, dream-like focus, tracking characters from behind or panning to unveil the latest torment around the corner. That visual style has become a trademark of “elevated” horror, but it goes a long way in anchoring a story that could have turned unwieldy fast. Cregger’s chapter-by-chapter story serves that same purpose: It has the capacity to frustrate when it cuts away from a major reveal, only to reset with the backstory of a new character. But it also adjusts the aperture whenever things get too heavy — a breath of fresh air in a different form. Despite the promise of answers, though, Weapons also has a funny relationship with the truth. Cregger was partially inspired to tell this story after the demise of a close friend, and the quiet horror of the unknown lives in every pore of this film. The question of “Why?” dominates Weapons, even into its conclusion — a harrowing, explosive, and again, slightly silly showdown. By the time the credits roll, you will understand why the children of Ms. Gandy’s class disappeared, but the film almost defies true resolution. Garner anchors the first act of Weapons. | New Line CinemaThe mystery of Maybrook Elementary is not the only one Weapons is grappling with. As the pieces of this story lock into place, night becomes day; horrors step out of the shadows and into the light. (Cinematographer Larkin Seiple captures blindingly bright summer mornings and that hazy, post-sunset feeling brilliantly.) The entity at the center of Weapons does eventually lose its power to frighten us, but the intangible remains. There are questions we may never learn the answers to, existential fears we can only dream of conquering or controlling. In that sense, this eerie fairytale couldn’t be truer to life. We’re all staring into the abyss, the abyss is staring back, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.Weapons opens in theaters on August 8.