Weapons has been easily my most anticipated horror film of the year. The second film from Barbarian director Zach Cregger, Weapons has been extensively marketed with deeply effective trailers and marketing that refuse to reveal too many details about the film – all fixated on one simple premise. At 2:17A.M, 17 school children – all from the same class – wake up, leave their houses, and run into the dark, nowhere to be found the day after. After a prolonged bidding war for the development rights, it ended up in the hands of Warner Bros Pictures, and exploded into cinemas worldwide on August 8th, 2025. The film itself is remarkable, a visceral and brilliant horror epic that feels like someone’s heart and mind laid bare on to the screen.
Cregger has gone on the record extensively to discuss the personal context that informed the creation of Weapons; written deep in the midst of grief after the passing of close personal friend Trevor Moore in 2021, the film is riddled with a sense of palpable grief and loss in a way that’s deeply authentic, including the anger, fear and depression that come along with that process. It’s also informed by his childhood, and his own experiences as a recovering alcoholic. You don’t need this information at all to help unpack the movie, because I think it works on its own as a piece of art, but it definitely informs the very basis of what Weapons is. This is a movie about losing something, in a way that seems almost impossible to explain or reconcile with, and how that tears people and communities apart. It’s about how people struggle to come to terms with their experiences, and reflects a very palpable level of underlying paranoia and anxiety you can see all over the world at the moment.
Make no mistake, this film is doing a lot. Whilst some descriptions of it may have you believe this is simply a drama film masquerading as a horror feature, make no mistake. This film is creepy, and has a couple of the most effective scares I’ve seen in years. It’s thrilling at every moment, with a propulsive and explosive energy that never lets up across its runtime, which is an impressive achievement for a horror film running over two hours. It’s also hilarious – Cregger comes from a sketch comedy background, much like fellow acclaimed horror auteur Jordan Peele, and utilizes his understanding of comedy well here, to both relieve tension and create interesting moments of tonal conflict. There’s sequences that are terrifying until they’re funny, but others that are funny until they’re terrifying.
It’s definitely not going to quite work with everyone, and I think a good audience probably makes or breaks a movie like this. Luckily, at the screening I went to, the audience seemed to pick up on every tonal shift and moment well, following every ebb and flow the movie took them on. It’s an easy film to invest into, and it rewards that investment. It’s also great to see a horror film that balances a wide set of styles and tones. Much like Sinners earlier this year, Weapons doesn’t collapse into the abyss of super-serious ‘elevated’ horror, and is filled with a consistent sense of heart and soul that make it soar. This is a film trying to do something new and different, and it succeeds, crafting a mulitfaceted horror epic.
It’s quite difficult to discuss the appeal of Weapons‘ story without spoiling it in detail. The film has an unusual structure, which many critics have chosen to compare to Paul Thomas Anderson‘s 1999 film Magnolia. I’m not sure this is exactly the best comparison, but I can see why it’s been made – both films follow individual perspectives across a short time in one town. I think the structure is more comparable to Cregger’s first film, Barbarian, taking the shifts in perspectives from that film and pushing them even further. Given how unpredictable this film gets, I won’t spoil much more, but I’ll lay out the basics. The film is set about a month after 17 school children disappear into the dead of night. It follows various perspectives on the consequences of that event, including their teacher, a vengeful parent, and a police officer. As they all attempt to unravel the mystery in their own ways, they have to reconcile with themselves and their losses. There’s something evil in the air, and as the townsfolk turn on each other, creepy and strange events put the fate of the kids into question.
One of the strongest elements in Weapons is the excellent script. The dialogue is fun, engaging, and memorable, with Creggar having an excellent understanding of how to write compelling and unique characters. Many characters buckle against expectation and how you originally perceive them, and Cregger uses those shifts to maintain an uneasy, tense tone throughout the film. You never quite know if a character is going to become better or worse, because almost all of them shift between questionable and often immoral acts to moments of victimhood and innocence. With such a large cast, it’s difficult to make each individual perspective feel as important as each other, but Cregger succeeds with flying colors. Debatably the best section in the film goes to a relatively minor character, who initially feels like a baffling narrative decision before it’s cemented as the most terrifying sequence in the movie. Cregger balances the shifts in tone and character with ease, and the whole thing feels incredibly organic and seamless throughout. The film also ends strong, with a brilliant third act and one of the most crowdpleasing and satisfying endings I’ve ever seen to a horror film.
Technically, Weapons is a delight. Cregger, cinematographer Larkin Seiple and editor Joe Murphy take every opportunity to do the strangest, most interesting and unique camera angles and shot compositions as possible. There are so many scenes were a shot absolutely stunned me, and it makes the most of its visual composition by changing it up all the time. Each character and section is shot slightly different, all to give you a glimpse into the character’s headspace and life. The film consistently picks the most engaging way to shoot any given scene, and it’s brilliant. It’s refreshing how the film consistently denies modern horror cinematography conventions and expectations, and I can’t praise it enough. The score, by Ryan Holladay and Hays Holladay, is fantastic as well. Each section is composed differently, utilizing different genres and sonic cues. For example, Archer’s section is drum-heavy and jazz-inspired, while Justine’s has the more typical stabbing violin fare one might expect from a modern horror movie. To balance a cohesive visual and sonic style whilst making each section feel different is remarkable, and left me very impressed. It’s a relatively big budget horror film, carrying a pricetag close to forty million pounds, but it makes every cent count on the screen and looks better than many films with four times the budget.
The closest thing the film has to a lead is Julia Garner (Ozark), who plays school teacher Justine Gandy. Her character, easy to write off as a disastrous victim, reveals surprising layers as the film goes on, and Garner gives a flat-out brilliant performance. Gandy is a mess, and Garner leans into every emotion with ease and grace, making her grief and paranoia feel realistic and understandable. Even at her character’s worst moments, she feels sympathetic, but the film allows her to be unlikeable too, and make terrible decisions that will undoubtedly frustrate some viewers. Garner has been doing consistently fantastic work in the horror genre for years, but this is her best performance yet.
The other primary character is Archer Graff, played by Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men). Brolin’s character is deeply angry and vengeful, covering up a profound depression and sadness. He’s a mess, just like Garner’s character, but in a different and more dangerous way. His character evokes alt-right macho men who refuse to look at any of their own potential culpability in a situation of tragedy, choosing to blame an easy target and dedicating himself completely to making their life miserable. Even his character is full of surprises however, and the direction his performance goes in as the film goes on is quite the wonderful surprise. Brolin does great work here, and it’s great to see him step his toes into the horror genre.
Two of the other primary characters are police officer Paul Morgan, played by Alden Ehrenreich (Oppenheimer) and Alex Lilly, played by child actor Cary Christopher (High Potential), the sole student of Gandy’s class who did not disappear. Horror is a genre known for getting great performances out of child actors, and Christopher is no exception. His performance is less flashy or ‘big’ compared to some of his scene partners, but he does a lot of fantastic, subtle work that makes your heart break in empathy towards him. He’s a kid caught in an absolutely terrible situation, whose life will undoubtedly be ruined by it no matter what, and it’s hard not to feelf or him. Ehrenreich is great as well, one of the movies’ flashiest performances and most detestable, disastrous characters. He’s very compelling to watch, in a way that kind of resembles watching a burning trash can get thrown on a train track.
Other important cast members include Benedict Wong (Deadly Class), Austin Abrams (Euphoria) and Amy Madigan (Twice In A Lifetime). Wong is great in the film, proving to be a consistent voice of reason throughout, and his dynamic with Garner is fun at every turn. He provides a refreshing counter to the two leads, level-headed in contrast to some of the madness going on. Abrams is brilliant, giving what is probably his best performance yet as a young actor. His scenes are some of the best and most memorable in the film, and he proves his mettle with effortless ease. I’m hoping to see more of him, because he’s actually shown quite a good range already in his career. Madigan also brings her best to the film, a late-career highlight as she sinks her teeth into a meaty, arresting role. She plays a character who’s incredibly easy to hate, but makes certain that you can’t stop watching her whenever she’s on screen. Her performance is likely to be talked about as one of the best horror performances of the year, alongside Sally Hawkins in Bring Her Back and Jack O’Connell in Sinners.
Some reviews have claimed that Weapons isn’t about anything in particular, but I think that’s blatantly incorrect. It’s simply a film about a lot of things – it refuses to just tackle one idea, and lets the viewer take away as many interpretations of it as they want. Much of the initial chatter, based on the premise and initial advertising, read the film as a metaphor for school shooters and violence within the school system. I think that’s a very valid interpretation of the film, supported by the text itself, even if Cregger himself has distanced himself from that idea. Something unspeakable happens to almost an entire class of children, and the entire town is torn apart by how to respond to it. Like mentioned previously, the film is heavily focused on grief, both personal and communal, but it allows itself to be a multifaceted portrayal of that theme. Many of the characters are deeply angry, at themselves, at others and at the world. It leads to addiction, violence, manipulation, and disaster for many of the characters, and ultimately, almost no one in the film’s large cast is left unscathed. Every character is permanently damaged by their experience. There’s no going back to what came before, and no undoing what has happened. You don’t even really get to see them make peace with it, because sometimes there’s almost no way to really do that. The loss is permanent.
Weapons‘ exploration of grief touches upon a very real sense of paranoia that is a reflection of the world right now. It explores how a community viciously divides itself in response to a situation that’s difficult to explain, how people pin the blame on those ‘different’ and easy to use as a scapegoat, and how the only way to truly tackle and solve a problem is to to authentically and honestly communicate. Weapons is a very American horror film, exploring suburban small-town anxieties in a modern age, complete with doorcam and CCTV footage that haunts instead of helps. A modern age interpretation of satanic panic, even down to one lead being accused of witchcraft. Horror is at its best when it is reflective of and exploring the fears of society in the time and place in which the film is made, and Weapons does that at every time. Whilst some of it isn’t subtle, at all, why should it be? The film is bold, big and brave, trying to craft something unique. It’s incredibly vulnerable, coming from a deeply personal space, and uncomprising in its vision. Some may not click with it, because it takes a lot of swings and debatably some of them may not land for most, and that’s okay, but if you give yourself over to it, you’re in for a treat.
Overall, Weapons is truly something special. What we have here is a rich and brilliant film, which deftly manages to be both a thrilling, crowd-pleasing gonzo horror film and a deeply moving reflection of current fears and anxieties of the world. It’s an antidote to how stale the ‘elevated’ horror trend has become by embracing the silliness and ridiculousness of the genre, but takes itself seriously enough to get the viewer emotionally invested in the film, it’s characters and it’s story. Incredibly well-made in a technical sense, with a barrage of absolutely brilliant performances from actors of all ages and levels of fame, Cregger has delivered an utterly remarkable sophomore feature. It’s visceral, a raw presentation of grief, loss, paranoia and rage put to screen. It taps directly into a nerve in the viewer, made all the more rich by the context surrounding both the creation of the film and the state of the world as it releases. However, it never sacrifices its entertainment value, proving to be hilarious, unsettling, thrilling and compelling at every moment. See it as soon as you can – but maybe don’t take the kids.
