Has 2025 been a good year for horror movies? Osgood Perkins has two this year, even if I didn’t care much for The Monkey. I’ve heard really good things lately about the recent Together, but I tend to avoid body horror. Sinners was amazing, perhaps the best movie of 2025, or it is at least up there as a tribute to music and a great, original vampire story. Now comes writer/director Zach Cregger’s latest, Weapons. Cregger’s previous horror outing, the creepy genre-bender Barbarian, was something I saw at home, and I think it would have benefited from being seen on the big screen. For Weapons, I ended up seeing it on the biggest screen in my neck of the woods in full IMAX.
How often do horror movies go the IMAX route? Oh wait, I saw Sinners that way…
As explained in the opening voiceover by an unnamed child narrator, one night, 17 of the 18 students in the same third day class all got up at 2:17 AM, exited their homes, and ran away while holding their arms at an unusual angle. The children all disappeared, and wherever they went, no one seemed able to find them. That is the premise for the movie, and from there, the movie shifts to the missing children’s teacher, Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), a woman that a number of people around town, perhaps most loudly in the form of Archer (Josh Brolin), the haunted father of one of the missing kids. Justine doesn’t know what happened to her student anymore than anyone else, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting answers of her own.
However, Cregger only follows Justine around for what might amount to the opening chapter of the movie before switching to Archer and retelling the story from his perspective, adding more details to what happened while showcasing how yet another character reacted to what happened. From there, the movie continues, switching to the perspectives of other characters like Justine’s cop “friend” Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), homeless heroin addict James (Austin Abrams), Justine’s principal Marcus (Benedict Wong), and finally the one child who didn’t disappear, the seemingly shell-shocked Alex (Cary Christopher). All of these people seem to have some sort of run-ins with a mysterious old woman (Amy Madigan) who seems to just appear places sometimes. What happened to the kids?
As I left the theater, I overheard another audience member remark that there were some really good jumpscares, but another said the movie made him very stressed out. I interjected to say that tension and a stressful feeling are what stays with you since a jumpscare is only a temporary jolt, even a good one. And, quite frankly, this movie is tense. I’m writing this up a couple hours later, and I am still feeling a wee bit stressed. Cregger knew exactly how to play out each scene to maximum tension, and not all of them end with a scare. Sometimes it’s a joke, but the release is always where it is needed to maximum effectiveness.
What the movie also does well is keep things mysterious. The movie never quite explains what’s happening, but it does offer some very good clues. The characters only have, at best, a vague idea what’s happening around them, and the few who have answers aren’t talking. But the parts add up to a spectacular whole, and after the general disappointment of Eddington, maybe Cregger gave me the sort of movie I wanted Ari Aster to give me. Regardless, it’s a good, creepy movie, masterfully put together, and just another great horror movie for 2025.
Grade: A
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