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Weapons (2025)

Weapons is one of the most intriguing films of the year. I was a fan of Zach Cregger’s last film ‘Barbarian’. The set up is that all but one child in a class disappeared at 2:17am, the film is a Rashomon structured film where we see a certain time period from several different perspectives that seem unrelated but then there is a little moment that connects it to the overall story. Julia Garner is the teacher who is suspected by pretty much the entire city that she knows something and we see her story, then we see the principal (Benedict Wong) and his story, Josh Brolin plays Archer who is the father one of of the missing kids who believes that Justine has something to do with it, then we see James (Austin Abrams) who is a junkie who breaks into the house that has the kids then Alden Ehrenreich plays the cop who has a thing with Justine and finally we have Alex’s story and his is the most interesting.

Alex is the only one in the class and that was a mystery that was more interesting than what happened to the 17 kids and that's because it's sort of told about half way through. It’s his Aunt that basically ruins his entire life. He is tricked into believing that if he brings the 17 kids then she will leave and his parents will be let go and at that point I found myself feeling sorry for the terrible thing that Alex is doing. The performances are really good. It is funny that three of the main actors in this film are Thanos, Silver Surfer and the younger Han Solo. When Amy Madigan turns up as the Aunt, she reminds me of Pauline from the BBC show ‘League of Gentlemen’. It was like the soul of the character had been dug up and planted into this film. Despite this I still found myself enjoying what was happening and that is down to how well the film is structured and how the characters are written.

The final 10 minutes reminded me of Parasite in a good way. The moment where the guy is mowing the lawn, looks up and then sees the woman being chased by the kids got a big laugh and I chuckled myself. In that film it is one film and then changes tone to become amazing and this seems to have a great mystery and then turns into a comedy towards the end. That whole section is a big shift in tone and yet it completely works. The whole film manages to walk a tightrope and is in danger of ruining the tension and mystery but credit to Zach Cregger for using some creativity in keeping things going. At 2 hours I was worried that the film was going to drag but that wasn't the case, I thought the runtime was perfect.

I really enjoyed this film. I had high expectations which is normally a dangerous thing but I wasn't disappointed. You will benefit from not knowing anything other than what you see in the trailer. The trailer does a fantastic job where you know enough to get you intrigued but not too much and doesn't let the film down. 2025 has produced some very good horror films and this is definitely in my top three. Well worth your time. 

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