'Weapons' - Tops the list of this years best movie... so far.

Josh
Aug 17, 2025
5 min read

Updated: Aug 23, 2025

Zach Cregger (2025)

This years best comedy.

Zach Cregger came out swinging with his, “first” feature film directorial debut. If he sweeps his co-directed movie Miss March (2009) under the rug, then so will I. Barbarian (2022) gave us something so out of left field with obvious themes but delivered in a way that was layered with subtleties from character behaviours. So when his next movie dropped with the tagline and premise like this, “Last night at 2:17 am every child from Mrs. Gandy's class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark ...and they never came back.” How can you not be hooked? There is one movie that this reminded me of but I cannot say what that is that will not spoil the premise. So before spoilers, I would highly recommend this. So far, my favourite movie of the year.

As mentioned above, a whole class room of students, except one, goes missing from one class room. And we open with a narration and setting up the characters at play. The teacher, Mrs. Gandy (Julia Garner), the parents but more specifically the vocal father Archer (Josh Brolin), and the remaining child, Alex (Cary Christopher). Like Rashomon (1950)or Pulp Fiction (1994), we focus on Mrs. Gandy for a couple of days, before switching to a new character. Which was the first of many surprises. We see the same few days from a different perspective, revealing new mysteries from the previous segment and as well as ending each segment on a new scare or critical piece to the puzzle. Each piece keeps you going until the next segment, wanting to know the why and how behind the bizarre thing you’ve just witnessed. Although, this does lead into one of the issues I had with this format.

*Weapons (2025) courtesy of Warner Bros.*

The whole mystery is one that is so engaging and insane to think about, where the police and detectives are completely baffled on why this is happening, you’re waiting for any for of explanation at the end. Yet due to the format, we reveal a piece of information that explains how all the kids left. Witchcraft. Without it being over explained, we view a small ritual that causes someone to act like their puppet and doing so, you can put two and two together. You don’t understand the why just yet, but seeing the method is enough to deflate the reveal. Although, even the way is vague but enough to “justify” the reasoning on kidnapping.

Unlike Barbarian that had a pretty obvious theme, Weapons themes are less in your face. With our Witch, all so known as, Aunt Gladys, which is hinted at when Mrs Grandy’s car is vandalised with “Witch”, is played by the wonderful Amy Madigan. Who wears over the top make up to act like an eccentric Aunt who’s doing her best to hide the fact she’s dying. In order to stop her from dying, she seems to put people in a zombie-like state, supposedly taking their life essence, like a parasite to the host. Again, not fully explained but alluded too. That reliance on outside forces is a common theme amongst our characters. From the Witch, to Mrs Grandy being dependent on the kids to not fall back into old habits, her cheating police officer (Alden Ehrenreich) love interest using her to cope with his wife, or the most realistic depiction of a drug addict (Austin Abrams) since Requiem for a Dream (2000) being a host for meth. Going even further with the sense of reliance, whether it’s drugs or alcohol or any form of addition, we can see this take over the parents of the one remaining child within the classroom. Although his Aunt does have them under a spell, the way the house is boarded up and they mindlessly sit on the couch, looks like a couple in the midst of a crack episode. With the child having to take care of them, literally spoon-feeding them. Even with sores on their face, not from drugs but from Gladys making them stab themselves.

But then, within the setting of a school, one could make the connection of losing children during a shooting. Which is teased during a David Lynch-style dream sequence from Archer, where a giant silhouetted M4 or AR 15 assault rifle. There's nothing more that goes beyond that connection but is seen more as a parent trying to rationalise the situation.

Visually the Cregger set up some scares that legitimately had me holding my breath. With the set up of the villain, seeing something as simple as a door opening in the darkness had me glued to the screen. Better accompanied with a cinema full of people gasping and screaming. Although, the darkness came at a bit of a detriment to the cinematography. With some high energy and visually pleasing framing and blocking, the colour grading lessens some scenes. Where I was left straining my eyes trying to make out what I was looking at. And it wasn’t done for scares, to which darkness is used to form a silhouette effectively.

And when Cregger dips his toes into the comedic side, the cinematography follows suit with wide flat lock down shots. Comedy elements are sprinkled throughout, mostly coming from character reactions to situations in the form of spoken or physical one liners, that doesn’t take away from the scares. Either using to cap the ending of a scene or disconnected from the horror, so it isn’t a sharp tonal whiplash. Until we get to the ending. Which reminded me like Once upon a time... in Hollywood (2019), where throughout the movie “nothing” bombastic happens that you would expect from Tarantino. Then you reach the last 15 minutes that has you laughing out aloud at over the top violence. Even more similar was the highly anticipated but disappointing Longlegs (2024). Where that failed for me but this was a success was in its tone. Where Longlegs felt straight as an arrow crime procedural with a last second demonic twist that felt out of place. Weapons had a blend of the horror and the comedic fantastical so when the super natural twist happens it feels appropriate for the universe.

As of writing this, Weapons takes the title of my favourite movie of the year. Although not 100% perfect, it's a film that’s been on my mind since seeing it. It does what the best films do, show me something I’ve never seen before. Keep me emotionally invested, pulling me along into different states without taking me out of the film. Provide an experience that is memorable. Subtle in themes but high with energy and crowd pleasing set-pieces. It’s a film calling out for a second viewing and it got me under its spell.