Film Review: 'Weapons' Is A Wildly Entertaining Horror Fairy Tale Fever Dream

One evening, 17 children in a small town woke up at 2:17 AM, walked downstairs, opened the door, and ran off into the night. This is the premise of Weapons, a fairy tale fever dream that will be this year’s most talked-about horror film. While I won’t go as far as to call it the scariest film of the year, it is wildly entertaining, weaving between moments of dread, mystery, and dark humor. Zach Cregger continues adding to his roster of outlandish horror films, following up 2022’s outstanding Barbarian, another film that I recommend going into completely blind if you haven’t seen it already.

The 17 missing children become the talk of the entire town in Weapons, as they all came from the classroom of one teacher, Ms. Gandy (Julia Garner). She is told by the school’s principal, Mr. Marcus (Benedict Wong), to lie low for a while, go on leave, and stay out of the public eye. The parents of the town are outraged, particularly Archer Gaff (Josh Brolin), whose son Matthew is among the missing children.

There are indeed horror elements in Weapons, and it fits into the category, but the film plays out more like one of those corkboards you would see in a detective's office, with lines of yarn splayed out in different directions, linking every person together. It is more along the lines of a sprawling horror “epic”, with the mystery being at the center of it all. There is not a lot that I can say here, other than that all of these characters - including ones I haven’t mentioned - intersect in some way. This doesn’t necessarily enhance the horror of the film, but it adds an interesting layer and shows how their various conflicts end up bringing them together.

The film is structured in a way that each notable character gets their own act, a way to see the events play out from their perspective. Even with a few things left unexplained, Cregger intriguingly unravels the story, and the scares are balanced well with genuine character interaction and even laughs. While I prefer slower-burning dread to the jump scare, now a cheapened commodity used by major horror films, the jump scares in this film are effective and very well done. I can confidently say that I got chills during two particular ones, involving a character that…well, you’ll see for yourself. You won’t forget.

There are moments in Weapons where I feel like Cregger is trying to add some commentary on the world, violence, and the way we treat each other, showing how, in a lot of cases, we are ultimately the arbiters of our chaos and problems. Yet at the center of the film is the one thing that can’t be controlled - why did the kids leave the house? Where did they go? While Weapons does a lot of different things effectively, it is at its best when it leans into this mystery and the horrifying nature of what caused these children to take that step into the dark. The genre stylizations are balanced well, and much like Barbarian, there are many things in this film that I’ve never seen done in a horror movie before.

I know that I’ll be thinking about this one for days to come, whether that’s trying to answer underlying questions or thinking about several different scenes that are sure to live rent-free in my head whenever I find myself in a dark part of my house. Or climbing into bed. Or walking down a street at night. Those scenes alone make it worth seeing Weapons in a packed theater on opening weekend.

Weapons opens in theaters this Friday, August 8th.

Release Date: August 8th, 2025
Rated: R (for strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content, and drug use)
Running Time: 2 hours, 8 minutes

Directed by: Zach Cregger
Written by: Zach Cregger
Produced by: Roy Lee, Zach Cregger, J.D. Lifshitz, and Raphael Margules

Starring: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Cary Christopher, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan