Anything can become a weapon, and anyone can be turned into a weapon. In the small town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, tragedy struck on one seemingly normal morning. At 2:17 a.m, 17 children from Maybrook Elementary went out of their homes, exiting the front doors with arms outstretched, vanishing into the vast of night. The kicker: All of the kids were from Ms. Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) class. Only one, Alex (Cary Christopher) returns for the next day of school. The horrific event places the town on pause. School is suspended and the authorities, starting with officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) look into every angle, even stuff going on in the streets courtesy of druggie James (Austin Abrams) but nothing is discovered and life, including school, must go on.

Parents like Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) aren’t ready to accept that reality, and push for accountability and more transparency from the school’s principal, Marcus (Benedict Wong). He, like other parents, are staunchly convinced Justine knows more than she’s letting on. As he takes on an active stance in uncovering the mystery, it unfolds in ways that no one could see coming.

Few 2025 movies have been as hyped as Weapons beginning with its gripping first trailer and subsequent posters. The marketing has been deliberate, withholding anything that could reveal the mystery of what happened to the 17 kids at precisely 2:17 am. Its buzz pre-release is very reminiscent of the phenomenal build one Longlegs had one year ago. The big difference is, Weapons, though not without its mild misfires, feels more like it meets the hype with its end result.

In 2022’s Barbarian, writer and director Zach Cregger announced his arrival to the mainstream with a confident solo feature that conjoined legitimate scares with unanticipated humor. With Weapons, the character-forward, chapter-by-chapter structure can also be considered different when thinking about the way most horror/thriller movies are told. It’s a very methodical approach that Cregger uses to slowly unfold the mystery, while throwing in feints here and there to keep the audience guessing. His comedic background shows again, but this time peppered in more throughout the story instead of long stretches where only comedy is visible.

The small-town setting is a smart choice to analyze how terrible tragedies leave their mark—or don’t—on a community. And that’s the tip of the iceberg for the themes embedded, yet the movie works mostly well as a surface-level thrill ride with sparse but highly effective bloodshed. Undoubtedly, some of the middle character chapters aren’t as gripping as say, the first two that Weapons starts with and the last one it ends with, but it is a pleasure to see everything fit into place at the very end. Maybe the biggest win for Cregger’s fractured approach is that it’s hard to envision this being told in a straightforward fashion, so the decision to do so never feels pretentious.

Barbarian was a very assured debut from Cregger, especially the first act. But in Weapons, it’s evident immediately to see how the director has grown behind the camera. Every chapter carries a standout moment, whether it’s a madcap car chase transitioning to a foot pursuit, or a tense tracking shot that follows one of the the characters from the front as they navigate through a liquor store while unknowingly being stalked. Jump scares aren’t cheap, but well-placed and just a beat earlier or later than expected to keep viewers on their toes. It’s all very transfixing.

The structure of Weapons is so satisfying too because of its cast. As far as “main” characters go, there’s not a weak performance and all are asked to carry stretches to advance the narrative. However, the work of Garner, Brolin, the young Christopher, and an oracular Amy Madigan are core standouts, each bringing parts of frustration, anger, hopelessness, and chaos. As the story escalates, the characters never feel inauthentic and their flaws make them endearing. In many ways, the characters are so compelling that more runtime would have been appreciated to highlight more backstory, or at least some cool character bios on the movie tie-in website that could hint at how the characters got specifically here.

Weapons really is not an easy movie to pull off, and Cregger’s final product isn’t perfect. But his carefully crafted ambition and adroit direction is married with stellar performances from industry veterans and rising stars. His sophomore feature cements the filmmaker as one of the prominent auteurs in the horror genre and highly suggests he has the skills to operate outside of it as well should he ever choose to.

B+

Photo credits go to themoviebox.net, kfoxtv.com, impawards.com, and variety.com.