Weapons | Directed by Zach Cregger // Starring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Cary Christopher, Amy Madigan, Austin Abrams, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong
Set the mood with some music!
Summary (Spoiler-free): Weapons is a gripping, multi-perspective horror-thriller that unravels the mystery of 17 children who vanish from their homes at exactly 2:17 a.m. Told in chapters from different characters' points of view, the film slowly reveals the eerie events surrounding the disappearances.
Every now and then a movie comes along that is hyped like CRAZY that you're cautious going into it because you're worried you'll be let down. Thankfully, like Sinners earlier this year, Weapons lives up to the hype. It's a film that reminds you why you love horror in the first place. Not just because it scares you, but because it sticks to your bones. It’s tense, unpredictable, deeply emotional, and so confident in its storytelling that I honestly can’t believe this is only Zach Cregger’s second horror feature. I went in expecting something creepy. I came out feeling like I’d watched a nightmare unravel in slow motion, punctuated by some of the best performances I’ve seen all year. This is MORE than just a horror movie... it’s an experience.
From its opening moment of kids sprinting into the night with arms eerily outstretched to George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness”, Weapons announces itself as something different. Not just different from the year's horror offerings, but from almost everything else out right now. Zach Cregger, in only his second horror film, directs with the confidence of someone ten films deep into their career. The pacing is surgical. The transitions between chapters are seamless. And the emotional impact is relentless.
The way the camera lingers, follows, stalks, every shot feels intentional and precise, whether it's gliding behind Julia Garner’s Justine through a dimly lit liquor store or watching characters unravel in long, unbroken takes. It's less about jump scares and more about psychological corrosion, as the dread steadily creeps in. Cregger doesn't just deliver horror. He delivers it with elegance and restraint, until the final 30 minutes explode into a wildly satisfying (and darkly hilarious) climax that had me genuinely breathless.
While Weapons kicks off with the chilling mystery of 17 children vanishing in the dead of night, that premise is more of a launching pad than the film’s true focus. The disappearances hook you instantly, but as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that this isn’t just a whodunnit. It’s a harrowing, layered examination of trauma and how different people carry, confront, or collapse under the weight of it. Whether it’s grief, guilt, addiction, rage, or numbness, Weapons uses its shifting perspectives to show how personal pain can warp perception, fracture relationships, and lead people down terrifying, sometimes redemptive paths. The kids may be missing, but it’s the broken adults left behind who are truly lost.
The acting across the board is phenomenal, but let’s start with Julia Garner. She’s jittery, mysterious, and grounded in a painful kind of realism. Her portrayal of Justine feels like watching someone disintegrate in real time: paranoid, grieving, and not entirely trustworthy. Garner can hold the screen with a twitch of her eye or the clench of her jaw. Even in moments when the script offers silence, she makes you feel the noise underneath.
Josh Brolin plays a convincing grieving father, Archer. It’s a big, angry, grieving performance, blunt-force emotional trauma channeled through a guy who solves problems with his fists and tools. He turns what could be a stock “angry dad” role into something uniquely sympathetic and unpredictable. Alden Ehrenreich also surprises here, playing a flawed cop trying to stay afloat in a collapsing town. His chapter is almost noir-ish and adds a much-needed layer of moral ambiguity.
The two performances that truly blew me away were Cary Christopher as young Alex and Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys. Christopher gives one of the best child performances I’ve seen in years. He says so little but communicates so much. The trauma, the confusion, the the eerie detachment is all in his face and body language. He’s the emotional thread that stitches this entire story together. There is a pantheon of great child actors in horror movies, and I think Christopher joins those names.
Then there’s Amy Madigan. Unrecognizable. Electrifying. She’s only in a portion of the film, but when she shows up, the screen bends around her. Her performance is wild in the best way—big, arch, campy at times, but deeply grounded in sorrow. She’s clearly having a blast, and that energy is infectious. She steals every frame she’s in.
The film’s structure, six chapters from different perspectives, could’ve easily fallen apart in less capable hands. But here, it’s what makes Weapons sing. Each viewpoint unlocks new pieces of the mystery while keeping you emotionally invested. It deepens the world without repeating itself, and it maintains tension even when it shifts genres, from grief drama to junkie noir to suburban satire.
This isn’t just a story about missing kids. It’s a story about a broken town, broken systems, broken people, and the way trauma leaks from one generation to the next. It’s heavy, yes. But it’s also weirdly entertaining. Cregger masterfully uses dark humor to keep the film from ever becoming suffocating. It walks the same tonal tightrope as Get Out or The Leftovers, blending social commentary with genre thrills.
The ending of Weapons is going to stick with people... and it should. It’s bold, devastating, and not remotely interested in tying things up with a neat little bow. Without spoiling anything, it walks a tightrope between catharsis and heartbreak, delivering a climax that’s both brutally satisfying and emotionally raw. It won’t work for everyone and it asks a lot of the audience, but for me, it hit in all the right ways. It’s bittersweet, chilling, and kind of beautiful in its own twisted way.
Weapons is a triumph. It’s everything I want horror to be right now: bold, deeply emotional, genuinely unnerving, and unlike anything else in theaters. It’s the kind of movie you walk out of buzzing, desperate to talk about but not quite sure where to begin. Zach Cregger has officially arrived as one of the most exciting genre voices working today, and if he keeps making movies like this, I’ll follow him anywhere.
.png)
.svg)
