August 8, 2025

"Weapons" feels like an old-fashioned horror thriller in that it bides its time. Nothing about it feels rushed (it's perhaps even slow in spots), and the writer-director, Zach Cregger, has made it his mission to take us on a long and twisted ride. Given the genre and the urgent, short-attention-span time we live in, "Weapons" initially presents what seems to be a middle-of-the-road journey we think we'll be able to passively step in and out of, but then it gradually starts to reveal itself as something that won't necessarily be easy or straightforward. The more we navigate it, the more "Weapons" hooks us and drops hints that something bigger and different is brewing underneath its dark surface, and it has a splendid payoff we don't anticipate.