A Masterclass in Suspense and Mystery
After weeks of building hype, especially with a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score before it even opened in cinemas, Weapons arrives with massive expectations. And despite there being only four months left in 2025, many are already calling it the scariest movie of the year. Adding to my excitement, Weapons stars my favourite Ozark actress Julia Garner, who joins director Zach Cregger — best known for his bold horror breakout Barbarian (2022). Cregger not only returns to the genre here but arguably surpasses his previous work. Weapons is a masterclass in tone — blending dark humour with eerie mystery — delivering a deliciously suspenseful and slyly funny thriller that refuses to let go.
The Chilling Premise
The central premise is chilling. At 2.17am, every child in Mrs Gandy's class wakes up, leaves their home and vanishes into the night. All but one are never seen again. When nearly 20 students disappear from the same classroom at the exact same moment, the small town is plunged into chaos and paranoia. Weapons opens with this haunting mystery, setting the tone like a campfire tale passed down in whispers. The visuals are unsettling: a shadowy montage shows children silently streaming into the streets, their arms stiffly extended like eerie little airplanes. The mythic quality of the scene makes the event feel less like a news story and more like a modern legend.
Suspicions and Emotional Tension
Naturally, suspicion falls on the children's teacher, Justine Gandy (Garner), whose troubled personal life — including alcohol abuse and questionable boundaries with students — makes her an easy target. During a tense school meeting with grieving parents and police, Justine is publicly accused by Archer (Josh Brolin), a devastated father. The scene explodes with raw emotion, laying the foundation for a narrative that continues to ripple across Weapons' 128-minute runtime.
A Unique Blend of Horror and Mystery
So is Weapons actually scary? While it has its share of unsettling imagery and well-timed jump scares — especially in the final 15 minutes — I feel that the film leans more towards mystery than pure horror. Cregger, who wrote and directed the film, once again uses a storytelling technique similar to Barbarian: disorienting structure, multiple perspectives and gradual reveals. But this time, the approach creates something closer to a whydunnit than a standard fright fest. There's also a steady undercurrent of dark humour that gives the film a Jordan Peele-like energy.
Expanding the Narrative
From that shocking opening, the film unfolds in time-jumping chapters that explore how the disappearance impacts different people in the town. Despite its small-town setting, the film feels epic in scope, and Cregger uses this format to offer intimate portraits of characters caught in the storm. We follow a range of characters, each with their own emotional stakes: Justine, trying to solve the mystery while battling personal demons; Andrew Marcus (Benedict Wong), the school principal who finds solace in cooking with his partner; and Anthony (Austin Abrams), a drug-addicted petty thief whose story at first seems entirely unrelated. Each segment is intriguing and well-acted, and though I had no idea at times how these storylines connected to the missing children, the mystery kept pulling me deeper.
A Rewarding Narrative Structure
At first, the film's fragmented structure might feel jarring. We're thrown from one perspective to another with little warning. But trust it. The pieces eventually click, and each shift in viewpoint adds another layer of meaning. It's a jigsaw puzzle in narrative form — and a rewarding one. Clocking in at just over two hours, Weapons maintains a strong sense of urgency. Thanks to the interwoven character arcs and alternating timelines, the film never feels sluggish. Even the quieter scenes bristle with tension, keeping viewers in a state of unease.
Standout Performances
Garner, as expected, is phenomenal. She crafts Justine Gandy into a complex figure — vulnerable, flawed and often unreliable. We want to root for her, but we also want her to pull herself together. Brolin, too, delivers a strong performance. His portrayal of a grieving father is rough-edged but sympathetic, grounding the story in genuine emotion. Cregger smartly uses humour to accentuate the horror rather than undercut it. Some scenes are laugh-out-loud funny — earning full-bodied, sustained laughs from the cinema crowd. But don't let the comedy fool you. When the film does veer into horror territory, it hits hard. The action is fast, violent, and immersive, with camerawork that puts us in the thick of the chaos, making us feel every pulse-pounding moment.
A Film Worth Revisiting
This is a film with high rewatch value. Even knowing the ending, I found myself wanting to go back and trace the breadcrumbs. The story is dense with visual and narrative clues that only become more apparent after the mystery has been revealed. That said, the final reveal won't be for everyone. When Weapons lays its cards on the table, the explanation might feel like it came out of nowhere. Certain story elements are shown, not fully explained, leaving viewers to piece together meaning through dialogue and inference. But that's part of the charm — and frustration — of this kind of horror-mystery hybrid.
Embracing Ambiguity
As with Jordan Peele's Nope (2022), where the "flying object" never gets a backstory, or Osgood Perkins' Longlegs (2024), where the devil's emissary is more metaphor than character, Weapons doesn't hand us all the answers. Some ambiguity is the point. If you prefer a neatly tied-up resolution, this movie might leave you wanting more clarity. Is Weapons the scariest film of 2025? Maybe not. But it's certainly one of the most captivating. Its mystery is irresistible, its humour shockingly effective, and its horror moments are expertly timed. With standout performances and a bold narrative structure, Weapons manages to unnerve, amuse, and bewilder — often at the same time. And while it may not explain everything, it delivers something rarer: a cinematic experience that gets under your skin. Weapons is unsettling in the best way — and absolutely one to see in cinemas.