By George & Josh Bate
Zach Cregger crafted one of the best horror films of the 21st century with Barbarian. The filmmaker’s solo screenwriting and directorial debut stunned audiences with its unpredictable narrative, palpable tension, and surprisingly strong sense of humor. Naturally, any follow-up from Cregger was bound to generate interest, and this certainly was the case. A bidding war for Cregger’s next film, titled Weapons, ensued and eventually resulted in New Line Cinema securing the rights to one of 2025’s most anticipated movies. And, ultimately, this anticipation is well-founded as Weapons is a sprawling, captivating, and meticulously engineered horror epic with terrifying scares, intersecting stories, and some great humor, resulting in one of 2025’s best movies.
Weapons takes place in a quiet suburban town in Pennsylvania that is uprooted when 17 children from elementary school teacher Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) classroom suddenly wake up at 2:17am and run off into the right. Unfolding as a series of interconnected vignettes, the mystery of the disappearing kids unravels through the eyes of the scrutinized Justine, a distraught father (Josh Brolin), a police officer (Alden Ehrenreich), a drug addict (Austin Abrams), and a school principal (Benedict Wong).
Like some of the best horror films, Weapons bolsters a premise that alone immediately attracts attention. The film wastes no time plummeting audiences into this overarching plot as succinct narration and disturbing imagery of children mysteriously fleeing their homes at night occupies the opening few minutes. It’s a smart narrative decision that allows Cregger to subvert getting lost in the initial chaos and investigation of the missing kids and, instead, focus on a far more interesting, interweaving story that continually reinvents itself.
Mirroring the narrative infrastructure of films like Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, and Crash, Cregger structures his film with discrete vignettes, each focusing on a single character in this twisted tale. The vignettes weave together, often with a scene from prior in the movie playing out from a different character’s perspective in a subsequent vignette. In a manner similar to how Cregger concluded the different acts of Barbarian, each vignette of Weapons concludes with a real punch, typically in the form of a genuinely terrifying scare. This ambitious structure for a horror film affords it with a certain grandiosity, ambition, and polish – Weapons feels as much like a prestige, awards-worthy character drama as it does a crowd-pleasing horror flick.
Grounding his script in the mystery of missing children, Cregger meticulously engineers the narrative to constantly pose questions, take unexpected turns, and reinvent itself along the way. Both in story and tone, Weapons mirrors Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners in many ways, but, over time, embraces horror more wholeheartedly and, surprisingly, humor. While humor was certainly present in Barbarian, which makes sense given Cregger’s background in comedy, Weapons goes even further with its sense of humor, especially in a bonkers, Benny Hill-inspired finale. With the exception of The Naked Gun, Weapons had us laughing more than any other movie of 2025, a particularly striking statement to make given just how disturbing, tense, and horrifying the film is.
As is the case with many mysteries, Weapons’ journey is better than its destination. In other terms, the slow unraveling of the mystery surrounding the missing kids captivates, but the ultimate explanation for everything feels a bit small scale. This is less a critique of the resolution itself, instead a reflection of how enthralling and unpredictable the mystery is that virtually any wrap-up would fall short in some way.
That being said, despite the reveals being a tad underwhelming, Weapons nonetheless culminates in an enchanting, suspenseful finale worthy of the quality of film that came before it. Cregger nicely wraps up every loose plot thread in comprehensively explaining the disappearance of the children. There are hints that the filmmaker is going for a deeper, sociopolitical message that will resonate more so with American audiences, although Cregger doesn’t commit to the message and chooses to relegate any social commentary to the far background.
Along the winding, crazy thrill ride, Weapons sports a glowing ensemble without a single weak performance. Although the story begins with a vignette focused on Julia Garner’s Justine Gandy, the film is firmly an ensemble piece without a main character, thus enabling an array of top-notch performers to flex their acting muscles. Garner superbly portrays the terror and vulnerability of a woman troubled by a question she can’t answer and a community out to get her. Josh Brolin, meanwhile, brilliantly portrays the complexities of anticipatory grief and the difficulties holding onto uncertainty with an impassioned performance. Alden Ehrenreich also shines as a police officer with a difficult past. Cregger’s willingness to spend time with Ehrenreich’s character, even when it doesn’t necessarily further the story in a substantive way, commendably pays off as Ehrenreich elevates every scene he is in. The real standout of the ensemble though is Amy Madigan in a role that the less said about the better.
These powerful performances become somewhat limited, however, by a script more interested in plot than emotion and character. Cregger orchestrates a genre piece with its narrative as its main point of intrigue and characters that move the story along, rather than evoke interest and investment themselves. Although it deals with heavy emotions and the actors deftly convey these emotions, the film seems disinterested in lingering with these emotions and exploring the complexities of the character, with the complexities of its story taking priority.
VERDICT: 8.5/10
Weapons is a sprawling, captivating, ambitious, and meticulously engineered horror epic. Bolstered by an immediately gripping premise, filmmaker Zach Cregger quickly plummets viewers into an intricate, Prisoners-esque mystery that slowly unveils its true nature and remains unpredictable every step of the way. Mirroring the structures of films like Pulp Fiction and Magnolia, Weapons features a series of fascinating vignettes, each focusing on a single character with relevance to the broader mystery and each bookended with a narrative punch, mostly in the form of a terrifying scare. Although the resolution of the mystery feels a bit small scale considering how epic and interesting the preceding mystery is and attempts to imbue the film with social commentary seem half-baked, the film nonetheless concludes strongly by wrapping up all of its loose ends and embracing humor in an unexpectedly overt manner. A strong ensemble devoid of a weak performer helps carry the interweaving stories, although Cregger seems more interested in the complexities of the plot than exploring the emotional complexities of his characters. Regardless, Weapons makes for compelling viewing – the kind of movie you simply want to not end. Excelling as a mystery, horror, and comedy, Cregger’s second solo screenwriting and directing outing is a resounding success and one of 2025’s best movies.