- Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Benedict Wong, Alden Ehrenreich
- August 7th 2025
- 128
- Zach Cregger
When 17 schoolchildren from the same class disappear into the night at the same time, the parents point their fingers towards their teacher.
Zach Cregger established himself as a horror director to watch with 2022’s Barbarian, and now he’s back with his next highly anticipated feature, Weapons.
His film revolves around a fictional Pennsylvania community that is rocked by the mysterious disappearance of 17 schoolchildren at Maybrook Elementary School.
All but one of the children in Miss Gandy’s class woke up at 2:17 am, left their homes and ran into the night. What happened to them? And why was Alex Lily (Cary Christopher) left behind?
Naturally, the parents want answers, none more so than grieving father Archer Graff (Josh Brolin).
Convinced Gandy (Julia Garner) knows more than she’s letting on, he begins his own investigation into his son’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, Gandy, who has been given leave from school for her own safety, starts to do some digging of her own to clear her name.
You may remember that Cregger split Barbarian into parts and abruptly cut away from one major horrifying moment to jump to something completely different.
He employs the same device here, but on a much bigger scale. Weapons is divided into six chapters told from the perspective of a different character, and this helps prolong the mystery and keep us guessing until the very end.
However, it is also frustrating because you feel like the story is making progress, and then it abruptly halts (usually at a good bit) and takes us to another narrative. It kills the forward momentum and is quite jarring.
Thankfully, this maddening technique makes more sense as we get closer to the heart of the mystery. Each character contributes important details to the story and helps us build a picture of what happened.
The final chapter, which fills in the remaining gaps, is totally worth your patience because it is horrifying, nerve-jangling and truly unexpected. You can almost forgive the slow pace once you discover what it was building towards.
Horror fans will have plenty to sink their teeth into with Weapons. There’s general creepiness and unsettling vibes, nerve-shredding tension, freaky characters, some jump scares, gruesome body-horror moments and a couple of ultraviolent incidents.
While most of it is saved for the final act, there’s still enough horror throughout to keep you on edge.
The structure won’t be for everyone, and there could have been more of an explanation, but overall, Weapons is a slow-burning horror that builds towards a wild finale.
In cinemas from Friday 8th August.
By Hannah Wales.
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