Perhaps the most chilling scene in Zach Cregger’s Weapons is not a jump scare, nor is it anything outright horrific; it is when one of the film’s principal characters is staking out a house in her car, a little further down the road. She has been waiting there for quite some time, enough to have fallen asleep into the night. The camera pans to the front door of the house, which slowly opens. After a few moments, a stilted form comes shambling out of the dark, holding something above its head. It makes its way towards her car, unbeknownst to the sleeping woman, who may or may not be attacked, or taken, or worse…

The way the figure walks is, in a way, a little funny, like a marionette being puppeteered across a stage; but because it is so awkward that the behavior disturbs. Like when a whole classroom of children, in the witching hour of the night, all get up from bed and run out of their homes, arms splayed outwards, and disappear. Many viewers have already commented on the silliness of the pose (as if copying the running style of the characters from hit anime Naruto) but what if your child, or sibling, were to suddenly run out of the house like that, going God knows where? Not so funny anymore, is it? […]