Where ‘Weapons’ Hits the Mark and Where It Misses

Even though Weapons was written and directed by Zach Cregger, the same person who wrote and directed Barbarian, it brought to mind Talk To Me. Why?

In the summer of 2023, Talk To Me was all anyone was talking about. (“Anyone” meaning horror lovers.) Similarly, Weapons has been on everyone’s lips this summer. But is all the praise justified?

Here’s what I liked and disliked about it. Warning: spoilers ahead.

Where ‘Weapons’ Hits the Mark

1. Originality

Even though we horror lovers love a good sequel, that’s a double-edged sword. Or maybe “good horror sequel” is an oxymoron or something equivalent? As we know, most good horror movies don’t require sequels and are ruined when they become franchises.

Most of us are zombie-style ravenous for fresh, original content like Abigail, The Blackening, Sinners, and even Ti West’s X trilogy. (Which, yes, is technically a franchise, but so cleverly done it’s not like watching a series at all. Each is semi-related, but each also stands alone.)

Weapons delivers something new and totally hits the mark in that respect.

2. Blending horror and mystery

We’ve never seen an entire third-grade class disappear from their homes in exactly the same way at exactly the same time (2:17 a.m.) before. Well, all except one child, Alex (Cary Christopher), and the teacher, Justine (Julia Garner). They remained behind.

Why? (We never do get an answer why Justine was spared, but we know why Alex was.)

But before we know, we are left wondering what in the world caused the rest to disappear? We learn they run off, but where did they run off to? Are they still alive? Will Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), one of the children’s fathers, figure it out? And once they do, will they be strong enough to contend with that force?

3. Killer performances

As noted in #2 above, Weapons stars some heavy hitters, like Garner and Brolin. Joining them is Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys.

Both Garner and Brolin bring intensity, but Garner gets to revel a little more in delivering comedic lines. Brolin has a couple, too, but not like Garner.

Madigan exudes the same charm she displayed as John Candy’s affable girlfriend in Uncle Buck. However, she pairs that with a chilling Pennywise-esque performance, making her creepy AF!

Last but not least, Christopher displayed the same old-soul stoicism as Haley Joel Osment did in The Sixth Sense. He’s a sympathetic hero I couldn’t help but root for. It’ll be interesting to see where his career goes. Hopefully far.

Where ‘Weapons’ Misses the Mark

1. Contrived plot elements

In Justine’s Case

As noted above, I can’t fault anyone’s acting. The choices their characters made, however, didn’t always feel authentic. Some seemed contrived to move the plot along in a convenient direction. Others made no sense.

Like when Justine is in her home after the heated meeting at the school. She peeks out of the blinds on the right side of her door, which are closed. The blinds on the left side are open.

When someone knocks on her door a couple of times but isn’t there, she dashes outside in a fury. We see her house’s porch extends in front of where those open blinds are. Anyone who’s trying to hide and stay concealed would make sure all blinds were closed.

And why didn’t she look through them after the knock came instead of peeping through the closed blinds? Oh, that’s right. It would be less dramatic. But it made no sense.

Neither did her rushing out of the house unarmed. Not to mention, who rushes out of the door and leaves it open behind them?

Most women are pretty safety-conscious, especially these days. She was super cautious about checking the street before she got out of her car when she got home. That tracked. A lot of people were pissed at her. So for her to throw caution to the wind all of a sudden didn’t make sense.

In the parents’ cases

The townspeople blaming Justine for their kids going missing also felt off. Sure, they were all in her class…but not at the time they disappeared. Their anger and blame felt misplaced. It wasn’t adequately justified to make me believe it.

Most of all, the way the parents reacted felt off. Sure, they were upset, but mostly at the teacher. Otherwise they were rather ho-hum and non-motivated to actually find their kids.

Basically, it seemed like no one was doing anything. Archer was sort of back to work, even though, admittedly, he wasn’t doing it well.

Then the one child’s mother that Archer went to see didn’t want to work with him. What parent wouldn’t try to find her son? Or was it a daughter? I don’t remember.

It doesn’t matter. What does is that it wasn’t until the dad returned home that he saw the benefit in sharing their Ring footage with Archer.

In the kids’ cases

Speaking of the kids, where was the urgency to find them? You’re going to tell me 17 kids mysteriously vanished all at once, and 30 days later, a search is no longer happening? Where was the FBI?

There didn’t feel like there was any urgency to keep looking for the kids. Not from the police or the parents. What parents wouldn’t spend every extra waking minute looking for their child?

Another thing missing was the press. Think of any sensational missing kid case. The media is everywhere. I find it hard to believe that, 30 days later, the press wasn’t still swarming that town. Sure, there were a couple of news segments in the background discussing it, but other than that, nothing.

2. Ambiguous plot and unanswered mysteries

What works for Weapons also works against it. Some people loved the ambiguity of not knowing exactly what Aunt Gladys was (some kind of energy vampire witch?) and how she got to be that way. Others, myself included, found that flawed.

Gladys controlled people by wrapping something from them (hair, clothing, etc) around a stick, smearing her blood on the stick, then snapping it in half. Or, with the kids, getting the name tags Alex had collected and destroying them all at once to summon them.

But how did she make Alex’s parents stab themselves in their faces with the forks? Or the principal kill his husband before hunting down Justine in a murderous rage? Telepathy?

That was just too much of a reach for me. So was the fact that she had 19 people (17 kids plus Alex’s mom and dad), and that still wasn’t enough energy for her. I needed a little more context to buy into this concept.

Like Sinners having a Choctaw vampire hunters prequel, maybe Weapons needs one to explain more about Aunt Gladys. Might put some more pieces together. (I know. I know. Advocating for a sequel when I bashed them above? The nerve!)

And don’t even get me started on the 2:17 a.m. We know it was the time all the children disappeared, but was the number significant to Aunt Gladys, or was it just the time it happened to be when she worked her magic?

3. Witches get a bad rap (again)

Sort of a bummer to see witches getting villainized again. Not that I’m against a bad witch plotline, but couldn’t it be for something bigger than vain selfishness and the fear of getting old and dying?

4. An unreliable narrator

Also, the narrator in the beginning states exactly what’s on the movie’s poster:

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

Except the kids did come back. Not on their own. But they were found. They didn’t stay missing forever. Some even started talking again, according to that same narrator at the end of the movie, who I don’t trust.

5. The ending

Once Alex uses Aunt Gladys’s magic against her to dispatch her, her spell is broken. So to speak. Sort of.

Archer snapped right out of it, but not Alex’s parents or his classmates. They were still living zombies. (Of the voodoo variety, not the brain-eating kind.)

Why wasn’t the spell over them broken entirely too?

Overall

It may seem like I didn’t like Weapons, but I did. It takes a tight plot to win over the critical thinking Virgo in me. Weapons played a little loosey goosey with some elements for my taste. That made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief.

But it kept my attention, I laughed out loud in a few of the funny scenes, and I thought Aunt Gladys was creepy to the max. (Even if I didn’t entirely get why she was the way she was, or how she got that way.)

Watch It

Weapons released digitally on September 9, 2025. It’s available to rent or buy in most places you can stream movies, including Prime Video, Google Play, and Fandango at Home.

Check-In

Have you seen Weapons? If so, what did you think? If not, do you plan to?