Movie Review - Warner Bros.' Weapons

Last night at 2:17 AM, every child in 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.

Weapons is a 2025 psychological mystery horror film directed by Zach Cregger, written by Zach Cregger, produced by New Line Cinema, Subconscious, Vertigo Entertainment, and BoulderLight Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It stars Julia Garner and Josh Brolin.

"Why only her classroom?" - Archer Graff

Plot

When all but one child from the same classroom mysterious vanishes at 2:17 AM the night before, the town is left confused, angry, and traumatized, searching for the sinister secrets behind their disappearance.

The Sweet

From the moment I saw the previews, Weapons was on my radar. Zach Cregger previously directed Barbarian, which was a fun and unique horror film that made an impact a couple years back. I would've naturally been interested in whatever he chose to do next, but as soon as I saw the premise and trailer for Weapons, I was sold.

And that's really what makes this film stand out. It feels like there are very few movies these days that can sell me on just the basic premise. Oftentimes, there has to be a big name attached to it or a big IP for it to really get recognition and for people to really go see it. Weapons focused its entire marketing campaign on building intrigue about what happened to these 17 kids, and that made me just so interested to see what this movie was and what was behind these disturbing events.

The movie does not disappoint with the way it builds out and pays off its mystery. The movie knows that its biggest selling point is the vanishing of those children, so it uses that as the overarching mystery but continuously builds out other, smaller mysteries that contribute to the larger narrative. It knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat. It will show you an image completely out of context that will both frighten and confuse you, so it adds to both the mystery and the horror, which is just excellent writing and direction.

I also loved the way that the movie was structured. It really shows you the same events multiple times, but it does it through different people's perspectives and reveals some new piece of information each time. The movie is essentially split up into chapters, with each chapter focusing on a new character, and I don't know if I've ever seen a film structured like that. It makes for a very tense viewing experience, because you will see something scary in one character's perspective and then know it's coming in someone else's. It also structures it so that each perspective ends in some big cliffhanger that leaves you even more intrigued into this mystery.

I feel like I say this in a lot of my horror reviews, but I don't scare easily. There's usually about one movie per year that actually manages to frighten me. Last year, it was Longlegs. And I found Weapons to be scarier than Longlegs. I saw the film yesterday, and I woke up in the middle of the night last night. I had trouble going back to sleep because of Weapons. It's been a minute since a horror movie has prevented me from sleeping, but this movie was truly scary enough to do so. Zach Cregger just knows exactly what to show you and when to show you it to make it as scary as possible.

Really the scariest thing about this movie is its antagonist. I'm not going to spoil anything, but you guys know that there is something behind the disappearance of these kids. It wouldn't be a good movie if there was no villainous force that caused the kids to run out of their homes. And that villainous force is so frickin' scary. I don't know if this will necessarily be an iconic horror antagonist, but it will appear in some of your nightmares, because it is just so unsettling and so evil. You want to see this villain defeated because it is both terrifying and so, so evil. You hate the thing that did this to these kids. And that just makes for a really great villain.

Zach Cregger has said that this movie is not an allegory for school shootings. I don't buy that at all, because I think it's actually a really good allegory for school shootings. Maybe the better way to describe that is, like, town-wide trauma. This movie is a very good exploration of the grief that can engulf a town when something like a school shooting happens. Sure, it effects the victims' families most directly, but there are ramifications felt across the entire city, and Weapons understands that and explores it, and I just found that to be a really profound theme within this really scary story.

With that being its primary theme its exploring, the movie zeroes in on its characters and how they respond to a traumatic event like this. All of these characters are heavily flawed, and we all see them grieve and process in different ways. There are times where they give into their character flaws. There are other times where they do the right thing. These characters feel really human, which is interesting considering that this is a very supernatural-feeling movie. Julia Garner and Josh Brolin interact like you would expect actual people to interact in a situation like this. Neither one is presented as the "bad guy", but they both have their perspectives and they are both valid in what they're thinking. I was really surprised at how three-dimensional all of these characters felt. It was one of the best parts of the movie.

Finally, this movie has a really good sense of humor. Barbarian had this, too, where it was a very dark, heavy movie with a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. Weapons has a few of those. It's always nice when a horror movie is able to break the tension a bit with a joke or a normal reaction from someone that just is funny given the situation they are in. There's a specific running joke near the end that I thought broke the tension maybe a bit too much, but it didn't really affect my feelings on the finale as a whole because it leads into a very satisfying moment.

The Sour

I feel like all of my criticisms for this movie aren't exactly things that it could've done better or not done at all: they are just personal preferences that I have that made these specific parts of the film not work for me.

With a movie that has a mystery as intriguing as this, it's always tough to pay that off perfectly. I think Weapons has a very good answer to the central mystery. Almost all of the creepy things that you see throughout are explained. All of the plot lines converge into this reveal. But it's hard to make the reveal feel entirely satisfying because your expectations are automatically going to set the bar too high. When you are sitting on a mystery for an hour and a half, it's hard not to get excited about the reveal and think of all the crazy things it could be. Weapons does not have some big plot twist that explains everything: it gives us a satisfying answer to the central mystery that ties everything together. But no matter what, unless it is something that blows your mind, the answer always feels less interesting than the mystery. Even if it is a good answer.

Although I did love the structure, there are two chapters that focus on two characters in here that I felt were a bit unnecessary. Alden Ehrenreich's character, the policeman, gets a big focus in the second act that, while highly entertaining and very good, didn't have big ramifications on the overarching plot. Eventually, the story we're following with him leads back into the mystery of the kids, but it feels a bit too disconnected for it to warrant a full thirty-minute chunk of the film...which leads directly into my next point: I think Weapons is too long.

Now, let me be clear: Weapons is not a long movie. It's two hours and eight minutes. That's honestly a little bit shorter than most movies nowadays, but horror movies are usually shorter than that. For example, Barbarian was about an hour and forty minutes. I think Weapons could've paced itself a bit better by cutting some of the policeman character and just making sure that the entire movie focused on the mystery of the kids and what was behind their disappearance. The movie feels a lot longer than it is just because the placement of the policeman story is a bit disconnected.

Finally, while I did love the characters, I felt a little bit underwhelmed by how much time we got to spend with them. This goes back to the structure issue: because we spend one chapter with each of these characters, it feels like all of them get their moment in the spotlight and then they're kind of sidelined for the rest of the movie. Julia Garner's character is essentially our main protagonist, but she's barely in the second half of the film. It makes it tough for any of them to really have character arcs or growth, and that was a bit frustrating.

Final Thoughts and Score

Weapons lived up to the hype, giving us one of the scariest and most unpredictable movies of the year. It's structured in a unique way that makes it both awesome but a bit flawed, but overall, this is a must-see horror film.

I am going Sweet here. Age range is 16+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

"Weapons"

Fun Factor: 9/10

Acting: 8/10

Story: 8.5/10

Characters: 8/10

Quality: 8.5/10

Directed by Zach Cregger

Rated R for strong bloody violence, frightening themes and images, language, sexual content, thematic elements

Released on August 8, 2025

2 hours and 8 minutes

Julia Garner as Justine Gandy

Josh Brolin as Archer Graff

Alden Ehrenreich as Paul Morgan

Cary Christopher as Alex Lilly

Austin Abrams as James

Amy Madigan as Gladys Lilly

Benedict Wong as Marcus Miller

Toby Huss as Ed Locke

Sara Paxton as Erica

Justin Long as Gary

Whitmer Thomas as Mr. Lilly

Callie Schuttera as Mrs. Lilly

June Diane Raphael as Donna Morgan

Clayton Farris as Terry Miller

Luke Speakman as Matthew Graff

Scarlett Sher as The Narrator