.webp "Weapons (2025)")
Introduction: Zach Cregger's Sophomore Slaughter
Zach Cregger's Weapons (2025) is a genre-bending horror grenade that detonates with the precision of a fairy tale gone feral. Following the surprise smash Barbarian (2022), Cregger's second outing as writer-director is a sprawling, sinister puzzle box about a small-town vanishing act that unravels into supernatural savagery and suburban paranoia. Starring Julia Garner as the unraveling teacher Justine and Josh Brolin as the grizzled cop Chris, this 128-minute R-rated frightfest from New Line Cinema premiered at Sundance on January 21, 2025, before its wide release on August 8 via Warner Bros. With a $25 million budget and a soundtrack by Ryan and Hays Holladay that hums with ominous folk drones, Weapons has already clawed $120 million at the box office, earning a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and whispers of Oscar nods for Garner's raw nerve-shredding turn.
Cregger, the ex-Whitst Kids U'Know comedian turned horror savant, structures his sophomore effort like a Brothers Grimm bedtime story laced with fentanyl—simple setup, escalating dread, and a finale that flips the script on grief's grotesque geometry. Critics rave: IGN's Tom Jorgensen calls it a "righteous, fully actualized genre-bender" that hones Barbarian's tension-humor tightrope to razor sharpness.<grok:render card_id="901809" card_type="citation_card" type="render_inline_citation">
Empire's John Nugent awards five stars, dubbing it a "crowd-pleaser" that shouldn't work but does, blending Magnolia's sprawl with Romero's rage.<grok:render card_id="50caf4" card_type="citation_card" type="render_inline_citation">
But does Cregger stick the landing, or does his ambitious ensemble epic trip into trope territory? This review and summary dissect the dread, revealing a film that's as funny as it is flaying.
Plot Summary: Vanishings and Vengeful Visions
Spoiler Warning: Major plot details ahead.
The film unfurls in Maybrook, a leafy Midwestern suburb where picket fences hide picket-line resentments. It's narrated by an unseen girl (Callie Schuttera) in a chilling voiceover: "This is a true story." One night, 17 kids from the same fourth-grade class—arms outstretched like sleepwalking zombies—slip from their beds at exactly 2:17 a.m. and vanish into the woods. No screams, no traces, just empty bedrooms and parental panic.
Act One centers Justine (Garner), the class's harried teacher, whose own daughter Nora is among the missing. Guilt gnaws: was it her storytime tale of a vengeful witch that lured them? As search parties scour the fog-shrouded forest, Justine clashes with Chris (Brolin), the disgruntled cop whose son is also gone—his bumbling investigation reeks of burnout and buried rage. Cregger's chaptered structure kicks in here, titled vignettes shifting POVs like a horror Rashomon: we see the vanishings through eyes of the aunt (Amy Madigan) whose niece didn't go, a young troublemaker (Austin Abrams) peddling rumors, and a disgraced principal (Toby Huss) hiding pedophilic skeletons.
Act Two coils the dread. The kids aren't dead—they're enthralled by "The Witch" (voiced in whispers by June Diane Raphael), a spectral entity born from collective trauma: the town's unspoken history of a 1950s school fire that killed 17 students, covered up as "accident." Flashbacks, stylized in sepia horror, reveal the blaze's arson roots—racist backlash against integration. The witch feeds on secrets: Nora confesses Justine's affair; Chris's boy exposes his abuse. Subplots intersect like veins: a Black parent (Micheal Ward) suspects institutional racism, while the aunt's hoarding unveils a family curse. Cregger's comedy creeps in— a PTA meeting devolves into screaming match over "woke indoctrination," the cop's stakeout interrupted by a porta-potty explosion.
The third act unleashes Grimm-gone-gonzo apocalypse. Justine, armed with a witch-hunting lore book from the aunt, leads a ragtag rescue: the troublemaker as bait, the principal as reluctant guide. They breach the witch's lair—a warped mirror of the school, classrooms bleeding shadows. Revelations cascade: the witch isn't supernatural—it's a manifestation of suppressed grief, amplified by the town's denial. Justine confronts her doppelgänger, a hallucinatory showdown where Garner duels her guilt in a storm of shattered chalkboards and spectral children. Chris sacrifices himself, staking the entity with a flaming cross from the old ruins. The kids return, dazed but whole—except Nora, who whispers the witch's final curse: "She'll come for you next."
Epilogue: a year later, Maybrook rebuilds, but cracks linger—Justine quits teaching, the aunt burns her hoard. The narrator, revealed as Nora, closes with a chilling rhyme: "One by one, they ran away... but the witch is here to stay." At 128 minutes, the plot's a taut trap—slow-burn setup exploding into ecstatic excess.
Performances: Garner's Gut-Wrenching Glory
Julia Garner's Justine is a force—a coiled spring of maternal mania, her Oscar-contending turn blending The Assistant's quiet fury with Ozark's feral edge. Garner unravels with exquisite control, her sobs raw as exposed nerves. Josh Brolin's Chris is a powder keg of paternal pathos, his grizzled growl cracking into vulnerability. Alden Ehrenreich's principal slithers with slimy regret, Austin Abrams' kid crackles with chaotic charm. The child ensemble—Cary Christopher as Nora's classmate, Benedict Wong as a skeptical detective—steals hearts amid the horror. Raphael's witch voice is velvet venom, a spectral siren that chills the spine.
Direction and Craft: Cregger's Grimm Machine
Cregger directs like a storyteller on shrooms: Larkin Seiple's cinematography (Everything Everywhere All at Once) paints Maybrook in verdant dread—woods like living labyrinths, suburbs suffused in sickly yellows. The Holladay brothers' score drones with folk unease, swelling to orchestral stings that sync with the witch's whispers. Editor Joe Murphy's chapter cuts are surgical, fracturing time to mirror grief's mosaic. Production design (Jeremy Hays) turns the school into a haunted diorama—lockers bleeding ink, playgrounds warped into witch's knots. VFX blend practical puppets (creepy child effigies) with subtle CGI shadows, evoking The VVitch's folkloric fright.
Themes: Grief's Grimm Grip
Weapons weaponizes sorrow—a supernatural scalpel slicing suburbia's facade, where missing kids unearth buried sins: abuse, racism, denial. Cregger, drawing from personal loss (his friend Trevor Moore's death), probes how trauma festers into folklore, the witch as metaphor for unspoken horrors. It's Magnolia meets The Wicker Man—interconnected anguish birthing communal curse, a timely elegy for America's fractured families.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths: Garner's tour de force, Cregger's puzzle-box plotting, and a finale that's darkly comic catharsis. The ensemble's raw bonds and visual verve make it a horror highlight.
Weaknesses: The chapter structure risks repetition, some POV shifts feel gimmicky. The witch lore leans lore-heavy, diluting dread in exposition dumps.
Conclusion: A Sophomore Slaughter Supreme
Weapons (2025) is a 9/10 triumph—Cregger's bold evolution from Barbarian, a twisted Grimm that guts and giggles in equal measure. Garner guts us, the craft cuts deep, and the themes linger like a curse. In theaters August 8—brace for the bite; this one's a genre grenade.