17 children have gone missing from one single classroom; this is the framework around which Zach Cregger’s Weapons is built. But the movie is not really about that. It is about the community that surrounded those children: the parents who raised them, the teachers who taught them, their neighbors, their coworkers, and the rest of a town interwoven by this confounding tragedy. The scope of this story may have bitten off too much to remain steadfast and focused by the end, but the ride is so wild that Weapons is more than worth watching and broad in such a way that it invites a variety of interpretations.
Weapons stars Julia Garner as Justine Gandy, the teacher whose children have disappeared, and Josh Brolin as a grieving father of one of the children, alongside a sweeping ensemble of characters whose lives are thrown into chaos by this mystery. Like Cregger’s previous film, Barbarian, Weapons is a movie that pulls you in with a chilling and somewhat clinical element of suspense before a series of abrupt shifts that are as funny as they are terrifying.
Weapons is bigger in every regard, with a larger cast and a far more ambitious story, structured like an interwoven, non-linear anthology as the primary characters are given their own sections, which often start or end somewhere that can be identified as a part of another character’s plotline. This structure, which some have compared to the Altmanesque approach of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, is pivotal to the success of Weapons. The thrill ride never lets up because each section ends on a note that allows you to fill in gaps from prior scenes while also eagerly anticipating how all the dominos will fall into place by the end.
The third act offers a major tonal shift toward the same kind of gonzo thrills that Barbarian offered in its most memorable moments. Cregger’s previous work brought a lot of comparisons to the tone of Sam Raimi’s style of horror, especially in films like Evil Dead II. Those zanier qualities come to the surface as Weapons races to the finish line.
Proliferating genre trends demand that films like Weapons tend to operate as direct allegories to societal or cultural issues. Cregger rejects the “elevated horror” label that is thrown at so many films of its kind, because this one never has that moment where characters practically stare down the camera while explaining the themes of the story. Given the title and the premise, many will expect a more overt allegory about school shootings. There is one vivid piece of imagery that certainly sets a target on that idea, but the film moves on quickly. What Weapons really has to say is a broader declaration about adults being complicit in a general neglect of children in our communities. When something bad happens, the finger-pointing becomes more centered than the tragedy itself. The children are left behind, and the adults are too busy blaming each other to care.
Brolin’s character is most central to this interpretation: a father who is deeply skeptical of Ms. Gandy’s influence over their children and blames her for their disappearance despite having no evidence. His arc is the most conclusive of any of the main ensemble, and his journey through the stages of grief is played excellently by Brolin.
Although Weapons is a bit messy, the scattershot approach usually works. Cregger’s second feature is bigger, bolder, and exactly the direction you want to see someone go after finding success with their debut. Weapons is uncompromising as a genre film, cut together in a devilishly clever fashion, and uproariously funny at times, joining Sinners, 28 Years Later, and Presence as one of the most refreshing and exciting horror movies of the year.
8 out of 10
This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2025.