What Even Is Weapons?

Zach Cregger is back, dragging us out of that questionable Airbnb from Barbarian and straight into Weapons. It’s a horror mystery that would send every parent in the audience into a cold sweat and a Google search for “Can I put GPS in my kid’s bloodstream?!”

I went into the Weapons advance screening knowing only this: “Last night at 2:17 a.m., every child from Ms.Gandy’s class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark… and they never came back.”

Love that for me. Really spicing up a Wednesday night here.

The Usual Horror Victims Get a New Playbook

Maybe I was primed for panic after watching Stephen King’s The Institute (also about children, exploited and in danger), but horror has always given the spotlight to the disenfranchised by mirroring how society dangles its most vulnerable members (children, minorities, the mentally ill) over the abyss just to see what happens. Usually, horror movies force us to witness this suffering, while someone bumbles around trying to “fix things”.

This is the horror genre’s primal heart beat.

But in Weapons? Cregger gets the storyline down, flips it, and reverses it.

Weapons (2025) is in theatres today - August 8th!

Multiple Perspectives, Maximum Chaos

Tension builds as the audience gets the story in fractured pieces, like we’re cross-examining witnesses. It’s a fun way to see multiple perspectives and the non-linear plot-line is reminiscent of Mike Flannigan’s Life of Chuck.

First, from Justine Gandy, the third grade teacher who shows up to class to find exactly one kid, Alex, sitting at his desk. No one else. The school unravels into chaos while the town’s collective finger points directly at her. “Why only her class?!” But here, Justine’s biggest crime is questionable work boundaries, like personally driving a student home in the way that would make HR sweat. And while she may be innocent of kidnapping, I respect her weapon of choice: a humble potato peeler, a nod to The Evil Dead Rise’s legendary cheese grater.

Then we meet Archer, a grieving father who watches footage of his son leaving the house on an endless loop. It’s grief as self-harm, and it’s brutal to watch. You feel for him, a man living on raw determination to find his kid.

We also meet Paul, the local cop and Justine’s friend, whose usefulness is somewhere between a wet paper towel and a flashlight with commitment issues. There’s James, the town’s disaster of an addict, whose eventual run-in with the Big Bad is genuinely gutting. Even Principal Marcus and his husband get dragged into the crossfire.

And when Aunt Gladys arrives, swinging between looking like Bathsheba from The Conjuring and Nicolas Cage from Longlegs - OMG, those lips! She is unhinged couture. You’ll love to hate her.

The character work is tight. You’ll know everyone’s motivations, even when they’re morally sketchy. And just when you’re ready for another round of “the vulnerable suffers while the rest of us gawk”, Cregger hits you with the revelation.

Audience Notes

The Weapons’ narrative won’t be for everyone, as the woman next to me sighed and muttered, “Didn’t we just see this?” into her fizzy pop.

Me? I loved the disjointed narrative. Show me the same story through every broken adult in town. Give me POV whiplash. Give me narrative vertigo. I want to see the story through every flawed, desperate adult who thinks they’re the hero.

Because here’s the twist: they’re not.

And Then… The Kids

At the end, it’s the kids who rise above the nightmare and embrace chaos as their rightful birthright!

It’s an over-the-top, utterly satisfying release of all the tension the movie has been building, and it flips horror’s usual script in the most cathartic way possible. It’s a finale that’s part vindication, part justice, and part full-blown Looney Tunes anarchy. It’s hilarious.

It’s a scream to “Stop messing with the children!”

As a Parent watching this?

Before kids, I would have thought after watching this movie, “Wow, what a wild ride!” After kids, it’s that and: “Excuse me while I go lock every door, window, air vent, and dimension in my house!”

Horror thrives on making victims out of the most vulnerable, but Weapons turns that on its head and says: maybe the ones you underestimate are the ones you should fear most.

And as a parent, that’s kinda hopeful.