How Weapons Breaks the Mold of the Last Decade of Horror
Is Weapons a harbinger of things to come?
If you’re a diehard horror fan like myself, then you’re probably well aware of Weapons from director Zach Cregger. Judging by the early box office figures (an astounding $71.8 million for its opening weekend), there is a good chance that you have already seen it for yourself. For those of you who are not familiar, this is Cregger’s follow up to the surprise hit Barbarian from 2022. That film made $45.4 million at the box office on a $4.5 million budget, so it should come as no surprise that Cregger’s script for Weapons kicked off a massive bidding war that ended with New Line Cinema (a subsidiary of Warner Bros.) securing the rights for $38 million. That is a hefty chunk of change for an original R-rated horror film. This isn’t part of an existing franchise or an adaptation of an existing property. It isn’t even a conventional setup for a horror film that you think would appeal to a major studio. Cregger himself has described it as a cross between Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) and Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018). What the hell does that even mean?! Having now seen it (twice), this description makes a lot of sense. I’ll get into that a bit later. Before getting into spoilers of any kind, I want to get into my general thoughts on the film and the bare bones of the premise. Then I’ll do more of a deep dive into the plot and how some analysis of the film that I’m seeing is shining a light on some flaws in the nature of modern horror criticism.
The premise of the film is a creepy one. At 2:17 in the morning on a random Wednesday in the suburban neighborhood of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, seventeen children in the same third grade class sprinted out of their homes and disappeared. We then get to see how the town is handling this baffling tragedy two months later, and we see how different characters try to solve this mystery. Anything more than that enters spoiler territory, so I’ll leave it there for now.
I loved this movie. It’s my favorite movie I’ve seen all year up to this point. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s stressful, it’s mysterious, and it’s a lot of fun. It works just as much as a character drama as it does a horror movie. My initial viewing experience was aided by an audience that was fully bought into the proceedings. There were screams and gasps at the well executed scares, and there was laughter at the scenes that were meant to be funny. That’s the sign of both a well made film and an audience that appreciates what they’re seeing. The performances from the cast were all excellent as well, and the cinematography (from Larkin Seiple of Everything Everywhere All at Once fame) was the best of any film I’ve seen this year. I realized I had my hand over my mouth for the entire final sequence of the film both due to the content as well as the way in which it was shot. It’s the most engrossing ending sequence I’ve seen in a theater since Children of Men (2006). I truly could not believe what I was seeing. I’ve seen some folks say that the ending didn’t work for them, but that seems to be the minority opinion overall. The same is true for the critical reception overall. At the time that I’m writing this, the film has a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes (87% audience score), an 81 on Metacritic, and an 8.0 on IMDb. Obviously there are some negative reviews as well as positive ones that point out elements that don’t land with the reviewers. There is obviously nothing wrong with that. Art is subjective. There are, however, some reviews that caught my attention. Specifically, I’ve noticed some reviewers say that Weapons isn’t about anything. Some of these reviews are negative, but others are mostly positive but with the reviewer lamenting that Cregger isn’t achieving his full potential by having his films lack meaning. A good example is one from Sean Burns of North Shore Movies. The sentiment from this passage in particular is what I’m seeing from more than one reviewer:
“Weapons” isn’t really interested in anything other than its own showmanship. In that regard, the final chapter is a doozy…Cregger stages a breathless, turbo-Romero climax that will leave even the most checked-out audience members cackling in delight. If this guy ever decides to make a movie that’s actually about something, he’s gonna knock it out of the park.
I removed a few portions to avoid spoilers, but you get the gist. It’s reflective of others I’ve seen since the film came out. I’ll be honest: I was perplexed by this sentiment when I first started seeing it. Both Weapons and Barbarian (Cregger’s first horror film) are “about something.” Barbarian is pretty explicitly about how women are forced to be so much more cautious moving through the world than men. Weapons might not be as obvious, but it has some pretty clear themes as well with the most obvious being how communities and individuals process tragic events. What I suspect is that reviewers with this criticism have become so accustomed to “elevated horror” that has primarily relied on horror as a metaphor for grief and/or trauma that they struggle to grapple with horror films that are attempting to do more than that. Movies like The Babadook (2014), Hereditary (2018), Men (2022), Bring Her Back (2025), etc. that function in this way have come to be seen by some as the only legitimate form of horror. I have said many times that I reject the idea of “elevated horror” altogether, and this is part of the reason why. A well made film is a well made film. It shouldn’t have to follow a specific trend to be seen as legitimate. I’m a fan of all of the films I previously listed as examples of metaphors for various forms of trauma, but they shouldn’t be the only ones considered to have critical appeal. I’m hoping Weapons will be able to get people thinking about horror in a different way and lead to even more original entries in the future.
If you have been reading up to this point without having seen the film, then consider this your warning that I’m going to delve into spoiler territory. I’m not going to go super in depth on spoilers, but I’m going to get into a more detailed look at the film overall. You have been warned.
Story Structure
The first thing I want to discuss is the nonlinear way in which the story is told. This is where the comparison to Magnolia comes into play. The film is essentially broken into six chapters with an introduction and conclusion that bookends those chapters. Each chapter is introduced with a character’s name against a black background. We then proceed to follow that character as they navigate the events of the film until some (usually horrifying) event brings that story to a cliffhanger. At that point, a new title card with a different character’s name appears on screen. We then go back in time to experience the same events from that character’s perspective. This happens with six different characters until we reach the climax where our different point of view characters crash into each other for a bombastic finale. The six characters who get their own chapters in order are Justine (Julia Garner), Archer (Josh Brolin), Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), James (Austin Abrams), Marcus (Benedict Wong), and Alex (Cary Christopher). Justine is the third grade teacher whose class disappears. She has become a pariah in the town, and she copes with that by making increasingly worse decisions. We learn that she has a drinking problem, and she has had issues being a bit too friendly with some of her colleagues in the past. She is simultaneously sympathetic and antagonistic. It’s not at all what I was expecting from the character based on the trailers, and I was thrilled to have a more complex protagonist brought to life by a tremendous performance. Archer is the lead of the second chapter, and he is the father of one of the missing children. He is initially certain that Justine is responsible, but that certainty slowly gives way as his own investigation continues. He is another complex character who seems excessively callous and aggressive from Justine’s perspective, but you really begin to empathize with him when you begin seeing how badly he’s hurting when we get to spend more time with him. Paul is a local police officer (with a mustache very obviously meant to evoke John C. Reilly’s character from Magnolia) who is leading a very different life than the one we initially see from Justine’s point of view. James is a drug addict who exists on the periphery of the story until we reach his chapter. He is easily the most comedic character of the bunch, and his interactions with Paul in particular are very entertaining. Marcus is the principal of the school where the students disappeared. He has a good heart, but he doesn’t seem to really want to deal with the issues at hand. The last character to get their own character is Alex. Alex is the only student in Justine’s class to not disappear. His story is saved for last for a reason. I’ll leave it at that. The performance by Cary Christopher (who is only nine years old) is incredible.
I’ve heard some complaints that the story structure hampers the momentum of the narrative, but I felt it worked extremely well. I enjoyed the little cliffhangers at the end of each chapter, and it made the character development so much stronger than I’m used to seeing in such a large ensemble for a horror film. It also makes the climax all the more satisfying when you are so invested in all of the characters.
The Scares
This is where Cregger really shines. The way he and cinematographer Larkin Seiple set up and carry out the most frightening and stressful scenes in the film is magnificent. The above scene broken down by Cregger is a great example of one of the ways jump scares are handled in the film. We as viewers are frequently restricted by only being allowed to see what the characters are seeing. Our eyes land on the scare at the same time as the character’s eyes.
While there are plenty of jump scares to be found in Weapons, that is far from the only source of terror. The scare that got the strongest reaction from the audience both times I watched the movie is fairly unconventional. It involves slow deliberate pans of the camera with a relatively innocuous noise (in most situations) providing the scare. I refuse to spoil this particular sequence because it is just so damn successful in freaking out the audience. You will definitely know it when you see it (or hear it).
Another tactic employed by the filmmakers is to have a fairly normal situation take place where something terrible enters the frame unexpectedly. I know that doesn’t sound like anything special. Something bad happens in a typically normal situation? That’s basically every horror film ever made. What makes these scenes so successful is the way in which they are diagrammed. The confusion the characters experience as they are slowly coming to the realization that they are in danger happens concurrently with the audience also coming to this realization. I’ll link to one example of this for anyone wanting to see it for themselves, but I’ll avoid embedding it and spoiling anything with the thumbnail. You’re welcome.
One bit of horror that is used somewhat sparingly in the film is the use of some intense gore. As was the case with Barbarian, the film isn’t packed wall to wall with extreme violence. But when it’s used, it’s done so to horrifying effect. Cregger seems to really enjoy cranial violence in particular (he must be part of the Ari Aster fan club). If you enjoy seeing the worst things possible happen to the human head, then this is the movie for you!
Lastly, the film has some of the most intense and effective chase sequences I have ever seen. There are people in cars chasing people on foot, people on foot chasing people in cars, and people on foot chasing other people on foot. I cannot overstate how great these scenes look. There is one in particular that I am dying to know how they pulled it off. I was completely blown away both with how the camera is positioned and moved throughout the chase as well as how the individuals involved progress throughout the scene. It rules.
Final Thoughts
Once again, I want to reiterate that I genuinely loved this movie. I’ve already seen it twice, and I’m itching to watch it again. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had watching a horror film with all of the twists and turns along the way since Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods way back in 2011. The difference between that film and Weapons is that the comedy often came first in The Cabin in the Woods, but Weapons is truly a horror film first and foremost with the comedic elements being more a side effect of the character interactions. I should also probably mention that the film easily could have been called What the Fuck?! with the amount of times the characters shout it in exasperation (Brolin in particular has a hilarious and memorable delivery of that line). See this one on the big screen if you have the chance. It’s worth it, and its success might lead to studios taking bigger chances on truly unique horror films.