Weapons

A Haunting And Wild Fairy Tale Of Communal Tragedy 

Suburbia could be the very last societal illusion resembling the old order, but I’m not sure the new order is finished closing in on us yet. We’ve failed to perform our unspoken obligations. To help our neighbors, acknowledge the sufferings of the worst kind, and apologize to the youngest of generations for the world they’re being left with. For these grave misgivings, there will be a violent reckoning. I do not doubt in my mind. My spine should be freezing with fear after Zach Cregger’s Weapons, but I feel ….. ENLIGHTENED. There’s a spark of mercy hanging on by a thread somewhere. Many of the people in Weapons have tried to make things better. Change the lives of those around them. They surely all started that way, but by the time the film begins, they’ve fallen far. Even their hearts are now fueled with rage and anguish. 

The devastation in question is one of perplexing details and unforeseen mishandlings for the town of Maybrook. At 2:17 in the morning, 17 elementary school children (All of whom are in the same class) get up, leave their homes, and run off into the dark. The disappearance brings the entire town to its knees and gives birth to the beginning of an unspeakable grief. Weapons is divided into six chapters, with many scenes being shown multiple times but from a different character's point of view. Weapons takes audiences through a harrowing and nightmarish journey through the lens of Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), the third grade teacher whose class vanished, Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the furious and grieving father who’s convinced Justine is involved, police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) who also happens to be Justine’s married ex, James (Austin Abrams), a homeless drug addict/burgler, Andrew Marcus (Benedict Wong), the mild mannered school principle failing to keep the peace and Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), a young child who happens to be the only kid from Justine’s class who didn’t go missing. 

The style of Weapons is very reminiscent of Bad Times At The El Royale, and like El Royale, Weapons prioritizes characters first and foremost. The script is like trying to solve a crossword puzzle, only to realize your original answer was incorrect right before you move on. The cast ensemble is miraculous. Ultimately, it’s Justine and Archer who are both at the epicenter of this furiously human horror story, and they both fully deliver in obtaining the undivided attention of their audience. 

Justine’s story arc is a reflection of America’s ongoing conflict between parents and teachers. Justine is very kind to her students, and it’s implied in a very nonverbal way that many of these kids don’t have very good home lives. “She’s a troubled person, is she not?!” Archer barks at the police station. He’s not wrong. Amongst the continuously changing culture that surrounds the education system, Justine has been reprimanded for hugging a crying child and driving home a girl who missed her bus. She’s also had trouble with substance abuse, and in the wake of the neighborhood’s grief, most parents direct their rage towards her. 

They scream at her during the school’s community counseling meeting at the start of the film, and the police have to block the mob of angry parents as Justine is escorted out to her car. Archer later takes two buckets of red paint and labels “W-I-T-C-H on Justine’s car. Justine deals with the hate by relying on Vodka and restarting an affair with Paul. 

Archer is among the most troubled characters Brolin has tackled in a long time, and it’s not difficult to see what attracted him to the role. He and Garner both particularly dominate in their nightmare scenes. Justine sees a strange woman smiling at her from her ceiling, and Archer follows his running son out of the house, only to find a giant AR-15 floating still in the sky. Weapons does not rely on jump scares but makes use of a lot of them. I normally don’t like them because they’re usually done in a very ineffective way that comes off as cheap, but in Weapons, it makes sense. One such scene includes Justine peeking through the window at Alex’s house as all the windows are covered in newspapers. She manages to see his parents sitting on the couch, completely catatonic, just staring into space. She gasps and knocks over a rack. 

Weapons also make use of their neighborhood settings. Justine is followed in one long shot as she walks throughout the liquor store with Paul’s wife (June Diane Raphael) following behind her for almost an entire minute before she knocks Justine to the ground and douses her with Vodka. As the town continues to disintegrate amidst their fury and bitterness, the identity of the woman from Justine’s dream is soon revealed, leading to a brutal showdown that will have a lasting impact on most of the town. 

The absolutely WTF bonkers and blood-soaked ending is a complete gut punch, but make no mistake: Everything that comes before it is what matters. Cregger, whose breakout feature “Barbarian” captivated moviegoers, soars even higher with Weapons, and those aspirations pay off. He started writing Weapons after the death of his closest friend, and after exploring different directions Weapons could take, he settled on an entire community whose inability to deal with their real emotions culminates in their undoing. Cregger has also said Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia was an inspiration. It’s been years since I’ve seen that film, but I can see why. Magnolia came out on the eve of a new century, and Weapons came out on the eve of some kind of societal collapse we don’t know of yet but can feel inching closer in our bones. Weapons is a fairy tale, but not the bedtime story kind, the kind that the Brothers Grimm had in mind back in the 1800s, with witches and parental neglect and inhumanity threatening to unravel everything. It’s a fairytale, the way Hulu’s Under The Bridge was a fairy tale. All those themes resonate here. 

Weapons is a terrifying, deeply profound, and harrowing exploration into the fallout of communal tragedy and society’s ability to look the other way at the monstrosities happening right under our eyes. Take, for instance, the scene where Archer confronts Justine at a gas station. They argue in broad daylight, and as Archer continues to berate her, Justine becomes distracted by the sight of Principal Marcus, covered in blood and bruises, running from across the street towards her with his arms spread out. He tackles her to the ground and chokes the living daylights out of her. Archer gets him off her, and as Marcus chases Justine in the minimart, Archer tackles him, and they both smash into the glass fridge. 

The store owner does nothing to help and insists that Justine leave and stop causing trouble. Marcus has defended Justine from the angry parents. The last time the two spoke, he was completely fine. What went down that he would suddenly and so violently turn on her like this? The woman from Justine’s dream showing up at Marcus’s house and taking advantage of his husband’s kindness soon provides that answer. Why is it that so often, those we ought to care about are ignored and discarded, while those that are helped only prove that we shouldn’t have bothered with them in the first place? Some people are like Justine. Furious on behalf of the suffering, but ultimately too kind for their own good. 

Through surveillance footage, Archer sees the children running with their arms spread out like Marcus was. Like angels of innocence fleeing into the dark or broken birds who’ve finally decided to fly away for good. Most of the parents of Weapons are not evil. They just live way too close to the edge of it. It’s that edge that we’re all living on now, and it’s that edge we must run away from. As far away as possible. If our feet can’t take us there, perhaps our eyes on the screen of Weapons will spark some sense of urgency within us. Even the most mainstream of movies (IF done right) can invoke that kind of aftermath among audiences. Thrilling, wild, and haunting, the town of Maybrook hopefully won’t be remembered as having been luckier than we Americans altogether. It always seems like the best idea to shut ourselves in a box. But boxes break. The contents of those boxes need not remain untouched. 

DiVincenzo, A. D. (2025). Feel Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” in 4DX with Our Exclusive Poster - Bloody Disgusting. Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved August 18, 2025, from https://bloody-disgusting.com/exclusives/3889162/feel-zach-creggers-weapons-in-4dx-with-exclusive-poster/.