"Weapons" is "a top-notch psychological thriller", said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail , but be warned: this follow-up to director Zach Cregger's "electrifyingly tense" debut, the Airbnb-set horror "Barbarian" (2022), is as terrifying as it is "gripping".

Set in a small town in Illinois, the film opens with the disappearance of 17 children from a single elementary class, who all ran happily out of their homes at exactly 2.17am one morning, then vanished.

Suspicion falls first on their bewildered teacher (Julia Garner), who is hounded by "aghast parents and townsfolk"; however, her own hunch is that the fate of the children has something to do with Alex, the one pupil who didn't disappear.

The story is told in the style of vintage Tarantino, said Kevin Maher in The Times , with the na

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