(2025) Weapons - Entertaining Horror Movie with Effective and Intelligent Story Telling

When this film was released last Wednesday along with another movie that we were interested in, my wife and I were not able to see any one of them. As we went for vacation during last weekend, we only got the chance to go to the cinema this week. However, only this movie that was still available. So last night we decided to see it in one of my favorite cinemas not far from our home. OK, I will get right on it.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the small city of Maybrook where seventeen children in the same class taught by Ms. Justine Gandy (Julia Garner - The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Ozark TV series etc) somehow left their house at 2.17 AM on the same night but never come back. The only child from that class who did not disappear was Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher - Days of Our Lives TV series etc) though he did not have any knowledge or reason for the disappearance.

Meanwhile the headmaster Marcus (Benedict Wong - 3 Body Problem TV series, Raya and The Last Dragon etc) decided to put Justine on administrative leave as he feared for her safety due to many parents, including the most vocal one Archer Graff (Josh Brolin - Dune: Part Two, Avengers: End Game etc) were suspicious of her. Justine decided to look into the matter while also rekindled her relationship with police officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich - Ironheart mini series, Fair Play etc).

So what actually happened to those kids? Who or what was responsible for the disappearance? You could find out in this movie. 

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was fun. My wife is not a fan of horror movies while I only liked certain type that would not give me nightmares. However this film was able to make me terrified at certain times despite it was not the supernatural kind with horrifying images. The horror in here was mostly built on the dark settings where we were not sure what or who would appear. Now I am very accustomed to jump scare scenes where they would surprised me a bit but later sighed of relief. This time though the scary scenes really shocked me and I felt my wife's description was spot on that our heart skipped a bit.

The horror in the movie was enhanced by the wonderfully done musical score. Obviously having a Dolby Atmos sound system in the studio really helped (I was pleasantly surprised when it has such sound effect as I did not think it would be available for the film seeing it was not the blockbuster type). All those elements truly added the terrifying feel, at least in the first half. The second half, I think starting from the third segment, were not as scary as before, although there was still some frightening scenes occassionally. 

Yes, this movie was indeed divided into several segments where we were shown events from the point of view of different people. There were plenty of movies out there that has this kind of segmented story telling and I have always liked them cause they truly showed the intelligence of the director. And this time it's no different. Zach Cregger (Barbarian etc) who directed the film (also credited as writer and co-producer), was able to do an effective story telling which kept us guessing and highly intrigued. Although the latter part of the movie felt a bit lighter and even comedic, at certain times we still got brief moments of horror. The ending was also satisfying for us and the long 127 minutes time was worth utilized (some audience including my wife also clapped their hands after it ended as show of appreciation). Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scene, but if you wait till the very end, there was something that might surprise you.

The cast were quite brilliant for me, including the child actor Cary Christopher who provided mature performance. Other than those names I mentioned above, there were several other cast such as Austin Abrams (Wolfs, This is Us TV series etc) as James, Toby Huss (Copshop, The Invitation etc) as Police captain Ed Locke and most importantly Amy Madigan (Antlers, The Prince of Pennsylvania etc) as Gladys. There were even minor support roles for Sara Paxton (Aquamarine, Darcy's Wilf Life TV series etc) whom my wife was able to recognize and the very familiar face of Justin Long (Goosebumps TV series, Dodgeball etc) as parents of one of the missing kid. 

In the end, this was an entertaining horror film. It was very refreshing to see such original idea crafted into a well made movie. No wonder it got rave reviews from critics and audience everywhere and made a huge box office result, already making more than twice the production budget and likely it should provide nice profit for the studio. It's also a big hit in Indonesia who are fans of horror films, especially since one of the most prominent Indonesian director Joko Anwar highly recommended it. So if you are fans of horror movies, I think you would love this. It's also enjoyable even if you are very selective like me and my wife.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars