Weapons is a 2025 Warner Bros. mystery/horror film written and directed by Zach Cregger, and starring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, and Cary Christopher. The film is set around a mystery, that being all but 1 kid from a third-grade teacher’s class up and leaves their homes in the middle of the night at the same exact time and disappears without a trace. I’m not giving anything away with that either, anyone who knows anything about this movie already knows that much because they basically spell it out for you on the movie poster (which you probably already noticed from the poster above). Cregger is the same guy who made ‘Barbarian’ and that became a sensation in the horror genre world for a while after. Just like ‘Barbarian’, this film deserves pretty heavy kudos in the originality department, both for the story and the way in which the story was told. There was a child narrator, and he laid out the story in past tense form, but the story itself was told in multiple chapters with each chapter being told through a different one of the main characters eyes. I really did enjoy that aspect to it because it consistently kept things fresh and intriguing as the mystery unraveled and made each character feel more relatable and sympathetic.
The story itself felt more like a mystery to me than a horror though out of the 2 genres, I will say. There were certainly moments of horrifying imagery and brutality, don’t get me wrong, but the feeling you were holding onto throughout was more intrigue and hoping your characters would figure this out than it was fear. There was also a lot more comedy and comedic moments in this than I was expecting as well, some of the characters felt like they were almost there as strictly comedic relief, and all of the characters had at least a silly moment or two. Everyone was well casted though and did a good job at portraying what they were supposed to, but I’ll give my shout out to Cary Christopher because you never know how it’s going to go out there with a kid actor (not hating, they’re still better than me at it), but he did a good job as Alex and really portrayed that constant feeling of dread and fear and eventually numbness well. You felt so bad for him. There were also moments of certain imagery in dream sequences and other things that were terrifying and others that left you questioning what they meant, but none of that stuff really got fully explained or explored to what felt like could be its fullest potential, which left me feeling like it was shown strictly for the jump scare and shock value aspect. Which is fine too I suppose, you need that a lot of the time in modern horror movies to keep people pulled in and interested, but I just wish some of the more creepy and head scratching stuff was a bit more explored and unpacked from a somewhat selfish standpoint.
The antagonist of the movie also felt very original and evil and the direction the plot went when they entered the fray is when things really started to get crazy. It felt like we were really building to something wild throughout the middle acts, but the finale in itself kind of let me down if I’m being honest. I’m sure there will be some mixed opinions on that as well, people that were in the theater with me seemed to have a good time with it as it was playing out, but it just played a lot more comedically than I was hoping or thinking it would. That’s all I’ll say about it because I’m not trying to give any real details away about this thing, but it just felt like a major tonal shift away from the serious subject matter that the film was centered around up to that point. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for comedy in my horror films, it breaks up some of the tension and dread in the story, but in the conclusion to the film? I’m not real sure I’m down with that, especially when this movie didn’t feel like a straight up horror/comedy per say. I can’t say a whole lot more in depth about this film though without giving things away and this is one of those movies that’s best to go in knowing as little as possible so I’ll leave it at that. Overall, I think most fans of the horror genre will have a good time with this, it’s a very original story and script and that’s worthy enough of a reason to check it out right there. In the age where Hollywood is filled with remakes, sequels, and reboots, the horror genre is the genre that most consistently still cranks out original ideas and movies and I love it for that. I personally enjoyed ‘Barbarian’ a bit more than this one. I think ‘Barbarian’ was just a denser and more intriguing story overall, but this was still a very solid 2nd release from Cregger and gets him even closer into the discussion of modern horror artists who you have to check out when they release something new. I think a lot of people will also enjoy this more than they did ‘Barbarian’, after all it is all about personal preference and they’re vastly different stories. This movie got very, very good critic and audience scores (especially for a horror film), so check it out in theaters now while you can and get in on the discussion! Till next time, be good to one another and peace!
