Summer Saturday afternoon date movie! My wife and I saw the trailer for this film before “Sinners” and both our interests piqued. A bunch of children running through the darkness with no explanation? Terror. Not necessarily the part about the missing children, but children themselves. Horrible creatures.

Let’s see what the fine folks at Wikipedia have to say about this film:

Weapons is a 2025 American mystery horror film written, co-scored, produced, and directed by Zach Cregger. The film stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan. Its plot follows the mysterious case of seventeen children from the same classroom who mysteriously run away on the same night, having been apparently abducted by an unseen force.

Weapons was first released in the Philippines on August 6, 2025, and was then released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 8, 2025. The film received critical acclaim and has grossed $29.7 million worldwide.

The Rev-iew:

I’m exhausted. From the moment the film began and the young narrator brought the audience up to speed, I was continuously attempting to figure out what was happening. It’s rare when that occurs in modern films, so I settled in for some lemonade, mozz sticks w/ranch (who said marinara goes best with mozz sticks), and some good old fashioned horror thanks to Alamo Drafthouse Cedars.

They’re getting better, by the way. Nowhere near as frazzled as they were a year ago during the Sony merger.

This film is cut into smaller segments owned by various characters in the movie. It had more of a Pulp Fiction feel when compared to traditional, linear films, as well as some subtle nods here and there to various other famous, potentially influential directors (kudos to anyone else who catches the Lucas reference/coincidence). I could tell in every frame that Cregger enjoys his life as an artist. Nothing in this film feels rushed, convoluted, or needless, and the clarity received in the third act pulls absolutely zero punches. To boot, the acting is top notch and believable all the way around.

Even though there are some online who found the humor in this film to be distracting, I am one of those writers who insist on the mixing of the two genres. I’ve personally laughed toward the heavens covered in blood in a field before. It’s liberating. My own tastes never found it to be over the top until the final few minutes, but I guess it was shot that way for the sake of keeping the film “real” rather than supernatural. My issue with Cregger in “Barbarian” was his choice of special effects during the final scenes. They distracted from the rest of the film’s authenticity and basically negated all which came before. As far as I could tell, this was all traditional special effects. If it wasn’t, then they did a damn good job of hiding it.

Unless you’ve been spoiled in advance, or if you just have a lucky guess, you will spend more than half of this film driving yourself insane with the details. The writing in this one puts the screwiest who-dun-its to shame, and that’s saying a lot from a Gen-X’er. When Fred and the gang finally pull the mask off the villain, it’s an ugly one. It’s not a 5 Star “Sinners”, but it’s much better than Barbarian.

I will own this one upon release.

4/5