OSCARS 2026: Weapons (2025)

 

After "Barbarian" became the surprise horror hit of 2022, Zach Cregger immediately went from merely a member of a cult favorite sketch comedy team to the hottest up-and-coming genre director in Hollywood. The press seemed incapable of not comparing Creggor's career path to that of friend Jordan Peele. Well, Creggor didn't win an Oscar for "Barbarian" but his next script – a so-called "horror epic" entitled "Weapons" – did result in a highly publicized bidding war between studios. Despite all the buzz around "Weapons," lips remained tightly sealed concerning the film's actual premise. As the marketing machine started to roll and trailers came out, only the inciting incident of the story remained revealed. I guess everyone realized that "Barbarian" prospered greatly from gaining a "go in knowing as little as possible" reputation online. Clearly, this mysterious approach worked, as "Weapons" became a proper blockbuster this past August. As with Creggor's first hit, I somehow managed to enter the theater without learning too much about it. Was the effort to avoid spoilers worth it? 

In the autumn of 2023, at 2:17 A.M., seventeen children in the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania left their homes and never returned. All the kids were part of teacher Justine Grady's third grade class with only one, Alex Lilly, arriving at his desk the next day. The local police scrambled to undercover answers but found none. Justine becomes the target of heavy scrutiny and harassment from the parents of the missing children, insisting she must somehow be responsible, but she's as clueless as everyone else. She becomes concerned about Alex and attempts to reach out to him, despite being barred from doing so by the school principal. Archer Graff, father of one of the missing boys, begins to pursue his own investigation. He also determines that the Lilly household is at the center of the enigma. Justine's ex-boyfriend and local cop Paul, her boss at the school, a crackhead named James, and Alex's peculiar Aunt Gladys all become entangled in the mystery as well in increasingly violent ways.  

"Barbarian" started out as a writing exercise for Creggor who, dissatisfied with the direction of the scene, then introduced a wild twist. The rest of the film spun out of that swerve. "Weapons" has a somewhat similar approach, while also drawing from the novel-like structure of "Magnolia." The film is broken into seven chapters, each one following the perspective of a different character. The timeline traces back and forth, sometimes showing the same events from different points-of-view. Creggor often ends each segment with a cliffhanger or exciting reveal, each part of the film only giving the audience a little more information about what exactly is going on here. It is a script designed to draw you ever-more into this narrative, while always having another unexpected twist or shocking event up its sleeve. Two features in and it's clear that this kind of playful storytelling is Creggor's style. Maybe he's a writer with a short attention span who has to repeatedly shift directions in the story to keep himself interested. It's certainly a clever way to catch the viewer's attention and keep us off-guard. 

"Barbarian's" twists were outrageous in nature, a slow-burn battle of the sexes thriller suddenly becoming a monster movie and then shifting towards finding the parallels in the #MeToo era and small town horrors such as those committed by Ariel Castro. "Weapons" is much more of a mystery, presenting us and the characters with a haunting series of disappearances. The film gets a lot of mileage out of shadowy nighttime shots of kids Naruto running out of their houses and into the dark. Starting with Justine's perspective, a baffled bystander who is too empathetic to stop looking into what happened, allows the viewer to also come into the story from the side. We are also an outsider to what is happening here. Archer, meanwhile, is obsessed with uncovering the truth, pushing his wife away and failing at his job as he devotes every waking minute to finding his boy. He looks for clues, re-watching the doorbell camera footage of his son running away and badgering other parents for similar evidence. These are two people at odds with each other but they are both compelled by a search for answers. It's the kind of narrative hook that you can't help but get caught up in too, like any sort of puzzling true crime incident. 

Both of them are also haunted by nightmares centered around the crime. The most beguiling of which has Archer seeing a massive assault rifle emerging from the sky. When paired with a story involving a communities of parents who are enraged, confused, and desperate over the sudden loss of their children, some pressing real world issue come to mind. Is “Weapons” inspired by the unending wave of school shootings we have in this country? Justine being wrongfully targeted as having some sort of responsibility for what happened, meanwhile, brings stories of the mourning parents of dead children being harassed by unhinged conspiracy theorists. Archer's behavior certainly resembles the Sandy Hill Truthers and PizzaGate crowd, with the way he obsessively searches video and images for clues only he can see. There's other ideas floating around inside Cregger's film, concerning police accountability and abuse of power, which could also tie into these themes. Instead, after a fascinating first half steeped in mystery, “Weapons” turns towards providing concrete – albeit supernatural – answers to most of its questions, none of which address these real world parallels. As someone who was, just yesterday, complaining about how modern horror films foreground their subtext at the sacrifice of scares, maybe I shouldn't be complaining about this. Nevertheless, “Weapons” is more compelling when presenting its mystery than when resolving it. 

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy “Weapons.” I did, a lot. Creggor's film trusts the audience in a way that most horror movies released by New Line Cinema these days usually don't. Strictly through visual means, the mechanics of the otherworldly forces at work here are explained. This pays off especially nicely in the last act, when a child grasps the same system of sympathetic magic practically intuitively. Further more, there are hints throughout concerning the nature of parasites. It is briefly discussed in Justine's class room and a pair of supporting characters watch a documentary about ophiocordyceps in ants. Both of which give us an idea of the villain's motivation without spelling it out via blunt exposition. In general, “Weapons” is a very assured film. Joe Murphy's editing is tight. Larkin Seiple's cinematography is moody. The soundtrack, from the Holladay brothers, is a little heavy on the discordant ambiance but works more often than not. Much like “Barbarian,” this takes some wild tonal turns in its second half. There's explosive moments of brutal gore, more painful and subtler scenes of bodily injury, before the film veers towards a mad cap sense of high-energy retribution at its climax.

Part of why I felt “Weapons” dropped off a little in its second half is because I found its first two protagonists so much more compelling than its other ones. The script does a very good job of making Justine and Archer complex, layered human beings. Without tediously detailing her backstory, we learn that Justine is a recovering and often relapsing alcoholic. She's made some mistakes in the past but they are often centered around her desire to help people, in her own insistent way. Julia Garner – who is having quite the year – does an excellent job of creating this fail-daughter who is trying her best. Garner makes Justine's frustration and stubbornness amusing and relatable, rather than annoying. While Archer does some shitty things throughout the story, Josh Brolin's performance makes sure to center the pain he feels as a dad that's let down his only child. There's a deep-seated self-loathing to his actions, this sense that he's failed in his goals and now is desperate to make up for them. The rest of the cast is quite solid as well. Benedict Wong gets a few laughs as the person reacting to a lot of the unlikely shit. Austin Abrams is especially amusing as a tweaker always on the search for his next easy buck. Amy Madigan vacillates nicely between a seemingly harmless old lady and a much colder, more sinister figure. I just wanted to know more about Justine and Archer. They were really compelling and the film ends with their arcs both feeling a little incomplete. 

An element of “Weapons” that I did find interesting is the way the camera lingers on brand names throughout. A can of Coke is centered early on. Campbell's chicken noodle soup shows up prominently in the second half. The bedroom of Archer's son is decorated with recognizable athletes and other pop culture figures. The Batman logo makes an interesting appearance. I don't think this an example of product placement or cross-corporate synergy. Another element emphasized in the film is the presence of cameras and recording devices. Everyone in town seemingly has Ring devices on their door bells. Phones are used throughout. A police officer's dash-cam is a plot point. This goes hand in hand with the presence of familiar, comforting brand names and the small town setting. The characters in “Weapons” are surrounded by modern convenience and have their every move recorded. It still doesn't protect their children. It doesn't make their law enforcement any more productive. It does not actually make them feel any safer. This is, perhaps, where the lingering undercurrent about school shootings and conspiracy theories actually build to something. That there is something very wrong in the American psyche, that violence and tragedy can still strike at any point despite all the measures we've taken to make ourselves feel more comfortable 

Another element “Weapons” has in common with Creggor's debut is that, as soon as the story is resolved, the film more-or-less ends. That, combined with the naturalistic way it hints at back story and focuses on being a swiftly paced horror story over any thematic concerns, makes it feel like a very eighties style sort of movie. You can imagine both this and “Barbarian,” in different forms, being actually made in the seventies or eighties. (Instead of merely being an attempt to replicate that style, like most throwback films try to do.) Normally, that would be exactly my kind of thing but I left “Weapons” wanting just a little bit more. That's probably a sign of its high quality, that this two hour and nine minute long film felt like it could have been a little bit longer to me. If nothing else, if New Line Cinema ever gets around to actually making a new “A Nightmare on Elm Street” movie, Creggor's clear ability to get at the heart of darkness underneath a small town's pleasant exterior might make him the guy for the job. Instead, he's rebooting “Resident Evil” next. Anyway, “Weapons” will probably play a lot better for me on a second viewing but it's still definitely a very strong motion picture. [7/10]