Weapons (dir. Zach Cregger)

By: Adam Freed

At 2:17 AM while a quiet Pennsylvania town slept, 17 third graders opened their front doors and ran off into the night never to be seen again.  Left behind after this mysterious event is a grieving community, a teacher riddled with survivor's guilt, an enraged father desperate to reunite with his son, a befuddled school principal grasping for answers and most confusingly, a lone nine year old boy, the only classmate that wasn’t impacted by the puzzling occurrence. Through the rotational perspectives of these various survivors, writer and director Zach Cregger’s Weapons unleashes a dark and hauntingly permanent experience upon the world. Equal parts captivating premise and brilliant execution, Weapons vaults itself instantaneously into the pantheon of transcendent horror films.

Unlike Cregger’s impactful Barbarian (2022), a labyrinthine tale of terror in which the journey outweighs the eventuality of its destination, Weapons is a fully formed film that sticks the landing.  Conceptually, missing children have long been cause for audiences to take notice, but the mysterious method with which Weapons frames its inciting incident is mesmerizing.  With the tact of a true-crime documentary, this fictional story is a powerful illustration of the allure the horror genre can possess when it affords itself the investment of building dynamic characters.  To this end, troubled third grade teacher Justine Gandy is played to perfection by Julia Garner (Ozark, The Fantastic Four: First Steps).  Garner has recaptured the performance confidence that made her a series standout in Netflix’s Ozark.  Joining Julia Garner is gravitational performer Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men, Avengers: Endgame) who portrays Archer Graff, a desperate father willing to go to any length to reunite with his missing son. Although the shifting point of view utilized by the narrative structure of Cregger’s film allows characters to drift in and out of focus, it is Garner’s Justine and Brolin’s Archer, who ultimately carry the dramatic weight of Weapons. 

The unique approach that Cregger’s film takes by way of its multiple perspective storytelling provides a layered richness that intensifies the catastrophic events of a story in search of a classroom’s worth of missing children. While, it is certainly not for the faint of heart, even the most squeamish of moviegoers will find pleasure in the delicacy with which Weapons unleashes its barbarism.  Make no mistake, Weapons is barbaric.  The tightly wound film spares little space for imagination when it comes to the graphic nature of its brutality.  Its upsetting imagery is a feature that risks alienating fringe audiences, but is sure to earn their continued attention on the promise of revealing complex answers to compelling questions.  Very rarely can it be said that the horror genre finds purchase amongst the year's best films, yet in 2025 with the additions of Ryan Coogler's masterpiece Sinners and now Zach Cregger’s sublime Weapons, it would appear the beloved genre is back with a vengeance.

Target Score 9/10 - Armed with an undeniable premise and a near flawless execution that delicately balances intrigue, brutality, and small doses of tactfully employed comedy, Zach Cregger’s Weapons is an instant genre classic.