Filmmaker Zach Cregger blew audiences away with horror thriller Barbarian in 2022, garnering big word of mouth after its 2022 San Diego Comic Con premiere ahead of its September release. In addition to fans clamoring for a physical release that 20th Century Studios has yet to deliver, they’ve eagerly awaited another tale from the budding horror storyteller. They got their wish this year as Cregger delved into his own personal experiences with horror mystery Weapons, a tale whose metaphors are stronger than its allegoric intention and whose parts are far more terrifying than the whole. Regardless of how one reacts to Weapons, there’s delight to be had in the fact that Warner Bros. Pictures is providing a way for fans to own it for themselves in a physical edition that not only captures cinematographer Larkin Seiple’s (Swiss Army Man) unsettling perspective beautifully, it includes around 22 minutes of bonus materials to inform any post-watch discussions.
A scene from New Line Cinema’s WEAPONS, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2025 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
One night, at exactly 2:17 a.m., in the suburb town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, 17 children from a single third grade class at the local elementary school ran out of their homes and didn’t return. Despite pulling in resources local, state, and federal, not a single clue could determine the cause of the elopement or deduce where they all went. All they know is that each child was from Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) classroom and only one student remained, Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher). As hours turn to days turn to weeks, anguish shifts to anger and resentment leading some locals to blame Justine for the disappearance of their children. Frustrated for taking the blame, Justine begins looking into it herself, but doing so inadvertently puts her on the path of a force she is unprepared to contend with.
The following is based on a 4K UHD retail copy provided by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. In light of the coverage that’s released since the theatrical run, what follows is going to lean more toward the spoilery-side of a home release review despite this being the initial review for EoM.
Since the theatrical release, there’s been lots of talk about Weapons, especially for its villain and thematic elements. Regarding the former, less is more and Creggar nails it, providing to audiences an antagonist who raises a great deal of questions and denies answers, aiding in the mystique that pervades the narrative. This is why the idea of the prequel investigating or explaining the origins immediately turns my stomach, feeling like a cash-grab rather than something which might inform or illuminate Weapons in a manner that necessitates such a probing. It’s the creation of and use of such an individual that births Weapons its horror, though it does muddy the waters a bit with the themes. To some, the disappearance of 17 children from one classroom calls forth the sense of a school shooting, an aspect pushed further by the dream sequence Josh Brolin’s Archer (a father of one of the missing children) experiences in which he sees the house his child is kept in while the form of an assault rifle appears above said house in the starlit sky with the red numbers of an alarm clock reading “2:17” appear in the space between muzzle and barrel of the rifle. It’s the only time in which the film directly calls out this metaphor with everything that follows in the exploration of our villain turning the tale toward addiction and abuse. Creggar talks in the featurette “Director Zach Cregger: Making Horror Personal” about how he drew from his own experiences with death and addiction without ever mentioning school shootings directly or indirectly and, in the press notes provided by WB Pictures for the theatrical release, Creggar identifies how the concept of his villain came quite late to the story as his creative process is more about putting ideas on paper and building from there instead of forming the idea wholecloth and fleshing it out. To this end, Weapons often feels like a series of different ideas brought together wherein the disquiet holds as long as chaos reigns, but, once brought to daylight, starts to unravel unexpectedly.
Put simply, the more one presses on the logic of Weapons, the more it evaporates like a nightmare at the break of dawn. It’s not just questions like how initial entry point Justine and secondary character Archer both have nightmares that specifically connect them to the antagonist (with special appearances by them) which goes entirely without explanation or connection beyond giving the audiences fright or further conveying internal discord for the characters. The use of the dreams screams of emotional manipulation upon the audience natural to the genre more than upon the characters, though it’s difficult to explain the connection between protagonists and antagonist within the logic of the film given what we’re told. The mystery should keep us on our toes, much as the mystery surrounding the truth of the story regarding why the children go missing (an aspect that’s best left to our imaginations, frankly), yet it doesn’t as we progress through the film as the antagonist starts as an It-like small town terror that reveals itself to be more The Witches sans comedy. Through the use of a splintered POV style — first following Justine, then Archer, and so forth until the end — Creggar is able to insert the audience into the overlapping perspectives within the town to showcase just how terrible this event has been for the community and the different ways in which it’s fermented distrust to the point of a proverbial witch hunt. Yet, by jumping from perspective to perspective, all the tension created by the end of each (prior to the final section’s and therefore the film’s conclusion) dissipates as we are moved to a different POV, often starting back at the beginning. For some, the Rashomon-like narrative structure may push them further toward the ends of their chairs, however, for this reviewer, it felt like starting back at square one and waiting to catch back up until something happened again. Thus, rather than a series of escalating moments that creates a pressure cooker of tension, it felt like cinematic edging with no real satisfaction delivered in the climax. That said, how the film ends both for the antagonist and the audience does gratify in its tonal appropriateness, even if it never gets back around to the themes the film seems to start with (school violence) before it pivots.
Even with the weakness in the narrative structure and themes to maintain tension, the performances from the cast and the Seiple’s cinematography fill in the gaps quite splendidly. Garner (Wolf Man; The Fantastic Four: First Steps) infuses Justine with a quiet determination that belies the actor’s physical stature and age, which gives the seemingly young teacher the necessary ability to thrive in spaces where adults might lord over her somewhat and remaining nurturing when working with students. Similarly, Brolin (Dune: Part One) gives Archer a seething rage based on philosophical impotence caused by his own inability to protect his now-missing child while also infusing the towering figure with a profound grief, both of these colliding in such a manner that only an actor like Brolin can make such a character fearsome and relatable at once. Both of these actors and their co-stars make the world of Weapons teem with uncertainty when it matters the most and shiver with a chilling reality once the veil of mystery is (mostly) lifted. Aiding with the performances, Seiple controls the camera in such a way that the everyday experience of moving through a space is suddenly horrifying. For instance, Seiple gives the audience Justine’s POV in her home as she wakes from a frightful dream in her dark house in the middle of the night, looking from her bed through her door and down a hallway, the darkness at the far end seemingly growing wider and closer (or is it our imagination?). Sometimes Seiple moves the camera in time with the characters as they move, locking us to them while keeping their destination out of our frame of view, unsettling us by the unnaturalness of the perspective. With all of these things working together, Maybrook and its citizens become unpredictable and unsettling in ways that defy expectations of small town America.
The bonus features are meager but helpful in gaining a better sense of Cregger’s intentions. Across three brief featurettes — the aforementioned “Making Horror Personal,” “Weaponized: The Cast of Weapons,” and “Weapons: Texture of Terror” — audiences are invited into the creative process for the cast and crew. In the six-minute “Making Horror Personal,” Creggar discusses the inspiration for the film which exists at a crossroads between a profound personal loss and his experience growing up in a household with addicts. This featurette in particular reframes the whole of Weapons from an allegory about school shooting and the impotence teachers and parents feel toward them in the aftermath and more toward the ways in which trauma begins at home and requires an engaged community to prevent extreme tragedy. In the nearly nine-minute “Weaponized: The Cast of Weapons” we listen to the cast speak on their experience of making the film and their own perspectives on the characters and their respective journeys. Christopher’s (Mank) comments and energy certainly imply that the young actor was well-treated throughout the shoot, a welcome stark contrast to what his “sole-survivor” character endured. If learning how the stunts were designed, constructed, and executed, as well as other behind-the-scenes details explaining certain artistic choices is your bread and butter, head to the nearly seven-minute “Weapons: Texture of Terror.” One of my favorite stylistic choices is the look of Benedict Wong’s (Nine Days) Principal Marcus in his possessed state highlighted in the marketing with his bulging eyes and, in this featurette, they explain exactly how they accomplished the wild look (unfortunately it’s not through practical effects, though it impresses all the same).
Regardless of how one feels about the film, the on-disc presentation captures the intentions of Cregger and Seiple. Unlike other recent 4K UHD releases with unexpectedly low bitrates (The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning), Weapons holds steady at 80 Mbps with frequent lifts into the 90s/100s and occasional drops into the 70s. There’s no artifacting in the frequent darkness-filled scenes, no signs of compression or distortion, just a clean and clear, inky black void to unsettle us. The dream sequences are infused with a soft blue/gray to assist with the sense of hyperreality while the rest of the film, especially in daylight, is quite natural, making the horrors that are presented, whether organic or influenced, uncomfortable in the dissonance. While no one would likely recommend using this 4K UHD title as a reference disc, it offers a surprisingly beautiful visual experience, an aspect which importantly comes into play when things get gruesome in small and large ways.
Weapons is, perhaps, most compelling as a film to litigate amongst friends than to watch. This is mostly because the use of perspectives, while an intriguing approach, often kills the very momentum it sets out to create and, in so doing, allows the audience time to deduce where everything leads. Granted, some of this may be a by-product of the terrible spoilers audiences have posted everywhere since its theatrical release, but Sinners (2025), another WB horror thriller from this year, was equally plastered everywhere and, yet, still maintains its tension throughout. All the same, there’re enough interesting ideas here to make one curious for what Cregger tackles next.
Weapons Special Features:
- Director Zach Cregger: Making Horror Personal – Zach Cregger unravels the intricate origins of Weapons. In this insightful exclusive, he details the initial sparks of inspiration that ignited the project, revealing how elements of his own life experiences found their way into the film’s core. (6:15)
- Weaponized: The Cast of Weapons – An ensemble piece showcasing the stark personalities and combative dynamic between the different characters, as well as the motivations that lead them down the path of mystery, conflict, and death. (8:53)
- Weapons: Texture of Terror – Maybrook, a seemingly perfect town, harbors a darkness that runs deeper than its charming façade. Tom Hammock, along with key cast and crew, delves into the intricacies of designing the terror that grips this unsuspecting community. (6:49)
Available on digital September 9th, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD October 14th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Warner Bros. Pictures Weapons webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Video, Reviews, streaming
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