Zach Cregger’s latest horror film, “Weapons,” presents an intriguing and unconventional premise where 17 children vanish simultaneously from their suburban homes at 2:17 a.m. on a school night. All students from Justine Gandy’s third-grade class, they are seen running out with arms outstretched, like small airplanes, leaving behind a bewildered town and only one shy boy, Alex. This mass disappearance in Maybrook, Pennsylvania, forms the enigmatic core of the story, with a local girl narrating the ostensibly supernatural events, priming the audience for a mystery that, like films such as “Hereditary” and “Longlegs,” embraces a successful horror subgenre of partial explanation and ambiguity.

Building on the sinister powers of suggestion he honed in 2022’s “Barbarian,” Cregger skillfully reveals the threats lurking behind seemingly innocuous environments. In “Weapons,” this includes transforming mild-mannered parents into an angry mob, reminiscent of a Stephen King novel that King himself never penned. The film’s close-to-home setting and cast of imperfect, relatable characters allow for various interpretations of the community’s reaction—from QAnon-style conspiracies to the painful aftermath of a school shooting, as parents desperately seek answers, consolation, and blame.

The narrative structure of “Weapons” is unique, splintering the mystery among six key characters rather than focusing on a single protagonist. These include Julia Garner as Justine, the stressed teacher; Josh Brolin as Archer Graff, a broken father whose son is missing and who confronts Justine at a school meeting; Alden Ehrenreich as a troubled police officer; Benedict Wong as the school administrator; and young Cary Christopher as Alex, the lone student left behind, whose flat answers and slow blinks contribute to the film’s eerie atmosphere. The story rewinds with each new chapter, replaying key scenes from different perspectives, with each “prismatic shard” offering fresh insights that click together like an expertly designed puzzle.

For more than an hour, the movie maintains a grimly self-serious tone, reinforced by Larkin Seiple’s steady-handed camerawork and a bone-vibrating score. However, a significant tonal shift occurs with the appearance of Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys, an interloper with smeared clown-like makeup. Described as a “satanic stand-in” for Mary Poppins, Gladys introduces an unexpectedly campy turn, blending humor and repulsion. As the violence escalates and adults are turned homicidal by the same suggestive force that compelled the children to flee, the film’s title, “Weapons,” becomes clear, revealing that the community consists of “targets and weapons,” and anything, from an impressionable child to a vegetable peeler, can be rendered dangerous.

While Cregger’s artfully oblique approach allows imaginations to run wild for much of the film, some critics suggest that the emergence of an “inevitably limiting explanation” in the final act might cause “Weapons” to lose some of its initial edge. Regardless of how audiences feel about its darkly comic finale, the film has been lauded as a remarkable achievement, a cruel and twisted bedtime story in the vein of the Brothers Grimm, designed to leave audiences with furrowed brows and palpitating hearts.

Commercially, “Weapons” has proven to be a strong performer, retaining its top spot at the box office on Friday and showing a robust hold, dropping only 37% from its daily total a week prior and 43% in its second weekend. The R-rated original has crossed $105 million in North America, ranking as the market’s 13th-biggest release of the calendar year. Despite competition from Netflix’s animated streaming hit “KPop Demon Hunters,” which is making a theatrical run, and other films like Disney’s “Freakier Friday,” “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” Universal’s “The Bad Guys 2,” and “Nobody 2,” “Weapons” continues to demonstrate strong appeal to audiences.