Movie Review | Weapons

Weapons (Photo – Warner Bros. Pictures )

Horror, a genre that can barely keep up with today’s headlines, has had a recent uptick in Together and now Weapons.

Weapons
Directed by Zach Cregger – 2025
Reviewed by Garrett Rowlan

Centering on the middle-of-the-night disappearance of a classroom of children, all but one and the teacher vanish, the film delivers its shivers and shocks with just enough offset pacing to make them resonate.

Offset, too, is the film’s presentation, beginning with a child’s voiceover recounting (and summarizing, at the movie’s end) the events therein. The film eschews a straightforward, singular point of view for a Rashomon-like shifting of narrators and characters, lending the story added depth. There’s a skillful use of ghostly surveillance photography, extended tracking shots, and flashback sequences—in one, the teacher of the vanished class asks, prophetically as it turns out, “Who can think of an example of a parasite?”, all of which shift our perception of the film from one angle to another. The film also makes a minor fetish of ceiling fixtures as a recurring objective correlative.

The cast includes Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, and Benedict Wong, all excellent, but I noted in particular the performance of Amy Madigan (decades past playing Kevin Costner’s wife in Field of Dreams) to be, yes, showy, but weirdly compelling. I couldn’t help but think she was channeling Ruth Gordon from Rosemary’s Baby.

While it doesn’t transcend the genre, and there’s plenty of gore for the aficionados, it’s definitely a step above typical grindhouse fare.

> Playing at Landmark Pasadena Playhouse, Regency Academy Cinemas, Regal Paseo, IPIC Theaters, Regal Edwards Alhambra Renaissance, AMC Atlantic Times Square 14, AMC Santa Anita 16, Regal UA La Canada, and LOOK Dine-In Cinemas Glendale.