With its claws firmly in a host of contemporary fears, from community-orchestrated witch hunts and the silent horrors that sit beneath small-town life to the ideological weaponisation of children and childhood, Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons’ is a heady cocktail of discombobulating horror and humour that is nothing short of a modern horror masterpiece.
It’s been nearly three years since Zach Cregger brought us one of the more creative and devilishly sharp horrors of 2022, Barbarian, and now he’s back with Weapons, a movie that feels like it sprang from the Stephen King universe, but, trust me, this is very much Cregger’s baby. Weapons is as much about shared community trauma, the toxicity of blame culture and the power of grief as it is about the divine jump scares, edge-of-your-seat atmosphere or disconcertingly dark comedic tones. Cregger’s Weapons isn’t just one of the best horrors of the year, it’s one of 2025’s most interesting and creative movies from any major studio.
With Weapons, Cregger has crafted an impeccable movie, so visceral in its impact that many scenes will haunt your dreams, even the ones where you find yourself giggling at the deliciously dark humour that ripples through them. Weapons is a movie that thrives on you knowing as little as possible before stepping into the theatre; therefore, you won’t get any spoilers from me in this brief and concise review. And if you have any love at all for the art of movie-making and the theatrical experience, you won’t share anything when you leave the cinema with those who haven’t yet seen it either.
Cregger’s film wastes no time in introducing us to the mystery at its heart, a mystery that, as the film opens, remains unsolved. At 2:17 a.m. on an average school night in the otherwise quiet Pennsylvanian town of Maybrook, seventeen children, all from the same class, went missing. Many of them were last seen on doorbell cameras running into the night with their arms spread behind them like fighter jets speeding toward a target. Every one of these kids was from Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) classroom, a newly arrived teacher who deeply cared for her students but also carried some baggage from her last appointment. However, there’s one boy who remained at his desk on that fateful morning—a shy student named Alex (Cary Christopher), who his more confident classmates picked on.
Neither Justine Gandy nor her school principal, Andrew (Benedict Wong), knows what happened to the kids that night, and neither, it appears, does young Alex. The puzzled and frustrated local police, led by Captain Ed (Toby Huss), have no clues and no leads, and his officers, one of whom, Paul, had a fling with Miss Gandy (Alden Ehrenreich), are all back on regular duties. But the lack of evidence hasn’t stopped the parents of the missing kids from drawing their own conclusions, led by a grieving and angry father, Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), who believes Miss Gandy knows more than she is saying.
With a typical small-town mentality that often leads parents to blame those who care for their kids when things go wrong, Graff is determined to uncover the truth about Gandy, even if that means an old-fashioned lynching. As Graf seeks to attribute blame without evidence, and Gandy turns to her own vodka-fueled investigation, one person living on the margins of this once ‘picture perfect’ community is about to obtain a valuable piece of the puzzle. That person is the homeless small-time thief and addict, Anthony (Austin Abrams), who lives in a tent on the periphery of town.
In a captivating and beautifully written, performed and directed example of the power of cinematic storytelling, Cregger lets the mystery slowly unravel from six overlapping perspectives: Justine, Archer, Andrew, Anthony, Paul, and Alex. As we bite our fingernails, nervously laugh and hide behind our hands, these individual stories combine to reveal a further character who may hold valuable information, played by the outstanding Amy Madigan.
For the first hour of Weapons, Cregger wants his audience to draw their own conclusions, while he tosses perfectly timed grenades into his scary, wildly entertaining, and mystifying maze. There are nods to They Came Back by Robin Campillo, Barbarian, The Shining and a host of classic ‘kid-centred’ horrors. However, while Weapons may nod to these stories, it’s something remarkable in the landscape of modern horror—a genuinely unique, fresh, and twisted contemporary fairytale that the Brothers Grimm would be proud of.
With its claws firmly in a host of contemporary fears, from community-orchestrated witch hunts and the silent horrors that sit beneath small-town life to the ideological weaponisation of children and childhood, Zach Cregger’s Weapons is a heady cocktail of discombobulating horror and humour that is nothing short of a modern horror masterpiece.
Weapons is released in cinemas nationwide on August 8.
Follow Us