This article was originally published on the DIASPORA Newsletter on August 13, 2025. Read and subscribe here!
SPOILER ALERT: The article contains details about Weapons.
On April 29, I saw the first trailer for Zach Cregger’s Weapons and was immediately intrigued. It left a lot unsaid about the plot besides the fact that a bunch of kids went missing. We also knew it was in the horror/thriller genre from the gorgeously demented mind that brought us the 2022 thriller Barbarian. And sometimes that’s all you need.
From the fade-in, Cregger gathers us around the campfire as if it were a scary campfire story. It’s as if Weapons is new folklore; an urban legend that Cregger is introducing into the zeitgeist. As a voiceover sets up the narrative, it’s as if the child speaking is flipping through the pages of a bedtime story that will certainly give you nightmares rather than lull you to sleep.
Cregger gives us this dark fairytale complete with a wretched evil witch in the form of Gladys, a new fashion icon, portrayed by Amy Madigan in a stellar performance — the best of the movie. With a sprinkling of Law & Order: SVU, Weapons is part procedural as members of the community try to solve the mystery of the disappearance of 17 kids in the middle of the night. They all woke up at 2:17 a.m. and walked out the front door of their respective houses. Ran into the darkness. Disappeared and were never seen again.
All the kids were in Mrs. Gandy’s (Julia Garner) third-grade class. There was only one kid who did not run out of his house in the middle of the night: Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher).
Months passed, and the kids’ disappearance remains a mystery, but fingers start to point blame at Justine Gandy, and the biggest finger belongs to the irate Archer (Josh Brolin), a father of one of the missing kids who has grown obsessed with the investigation.
Justine tries to live her life, but how could she? The town is coming at her with pitchforks. So what does she do? She lets the alcohol flow, and she basically texts “You up?” to an old flame, Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a police officer who has problems of his own.
With Rashomon flair, Weapons overlaps in points of view. In chapters, we see the story from the eyes of Justine, Archer, Paul, and Alex. We also get the story told from the perspective of jellybean-loving school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong) and James (Austin Abrams), a homeless drug addict who ends up helping more than anyone else.
Weapons is haunting, but it’s also… kind of funny. I found myself laughing as much as I found myself saying “What the fuck?!” much like Archer did in the movie after he had a nightmare.
Much like he did with Barbarian, Cregger knows how to fold in levity at the perfect moment to soothe the shriek of a jump scare or the Faces of Death-level shock of a jaw being ripped from its head. He managed to do this in Barbarian and has a knack for it, similar to how filmmakers like M. Night Shyamalan and Jordan Peele strategically thread that needle of humor and horror… and they are also filmmakers who know not to take this shit too seriously.
Weapons is scary as it is silly, and that is what makes it a well-rounded movie-going experience. Upon reading Threads about the movie and initial reviews, Weapons was being lauded. A couple of “best movie of the year” sound bites were being thrown around. I mean, yes, it was good. Is it the BEST movie of the year? I can’t answer that question because it’s only August.
One thing for sure is that Weapons is a refreshing splash of cinema in a lazy river of Hollywood IP we’ve been floating in as of late. So it has that going for it. That’s exciting. Whatever message you want to take from it, Weapons is a divine collision of B-movie horror nostalgia a la the OG Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the contemporary psycho-supernatural shock of movies like Talk To Me.
It’s also a great movie to make you not want to have kids.
With this and Barbarian, Cregger is finding a fun stride in a lane I want to be in, serving up a brand of demented thrills and horrific what-the-fuckery that entertains like nothing else. He manages to bring out enjoyable performances from the collective of performers he welcomes into his carnival of chaos (btw: loved seeing the Justin Long cameo in this).
As freaky and haunting as Weapons was (again, it was mostly because of Madigan’s Gladys), at one point I realized I was basically in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that I was safe.
I was watching the Silver Surfer arguing with Thanos while the bloody-mouthed Sorcerer Supreme Wong, wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt, was charging at them with a vengeance. And to top it all off, Shalla-Bal was having an affair with Ezekiel Stane from Ironheart.
That made it all easier for this not to be nightmare fuel.
