Each year, horror fans are treated to a couple of movies that have a bit more budget than the rest, have a bit more star power, more advertisement, more hype as well as being directed by a more prominent director. Weapons falls into that horror movie category in 2025. While the story and premise were interesting in the beginning, the execution just felt completely off towards the second half. There also seem to be some weird decisions made in regard to the story format as well as the movie itself not really knowing what its identity should be. Is it supposed to be a horror flick with some sci-fi and psychological elements sprinkled in? Comedy horror? Action horror? Weapons is a decent movie, certainly better than the other stuff I’ve watched this year, but I can’t help thinking that they could have done more had they gone in some other direction.

Let’s start with the good. I think the casting was decent. I was not a fan of Julia Garner in Wolfman, but she felt much more at home here in Weapons. She played the part of Justine perfectly. I think her looks and style nail down that broken female character role that has a darker past. Josh Brolin playing the role of a concerned father was okay; nothing special. Th other standout includes Benedict Wong as Marcus, a guidance/school counselor. I’ll get more into Benedict’s part later. As for the story, it starts off captivating. An entire classroom of kids, except for one, suddenly runs out the door at exactly 2:17 AM in the morning to who knows where. They obviously seemed to all be under some sort of hypnosis spell. Maybe even dream walking? Being controlled by some alien entity? The movie gets off to a good start with Justine’s part being up first. It then, unfortunately, slowly goes a tad downhill from there on out as the movie progresses, but still enough to hold your attention for the secret reveal payoff.

Alright, so let’s get on with the bad. Why did they decide to go for the interwoven narrative filming where we get to see the point of view of the characters? I thought this was odd and didn’t really add anything to the movie as a whole except for just one sequence of events. For example, the cop’s part along with the junkie felt completely unnecessary and a waste of time. It really didn’t add much other than to put them there in the house at the end when they attacked Justine and Archer. In fact, a whole lot of Weapons felt unnecessary. They could have used that time to explore and explain more of the lore behind Gladys, the witch. As it is, I just understood her to be some sort of sick cancer patient who happens to know voodoo/witchcraft. Nothing was ever explained of how she came to be. How she learned her witchcraft? Is she using the kids to drain their lifeforce or is it to “weaponize” them for some other cause? Maybe both?

Weapons also has an identity crisis. There are some scary parts due to jump scares, but then they turn around and do some comedic shit that baffles my mind. At first, I had hoped that when Archer dreamt of that assault machine gun with the numbers 2:17 embedded on it above the house, we were going to get some sci-fi elements soon. But nope. Totally not the case. In fact, I’m failing to see just WTF does this scene have anything to do with the movie at all. Like seriously. What did I miss after watching the movie that can explain why Archer dreamt of a big-ass assault rifle hologram? Like sure, 2:17. I get that part. But why the assault rifle? Was that his kid’s alarm clock or some shit? So many questions.

The scariest scene has got to be from Benedict Wong’s character once he got turned into a weapon and under the spell of Gladys. I don’t know what they did, but give this guy an award or medal because he looked seriously messed up, in a good horror way. Obviously, the makeup had a lot to do with it, but did they do any special effects on his eyes to make them bulge like that? Like WTF? I swear, if they start making zombies in movies that look like this along with being able to run a la anime style like Marcus did here, it would be friggin nuts. His chase scene was literally the best in the movie.

OK, so the other questions. There are definitely a lot besides the one’s I’ve already alluded too.

1. Gladys really, really didn’t want anyone to find out about her, as evident when she was threatening Alex in their house after she fucked up his parents. So, uhhmm…like why did she spare him in the first place? After Alex had given her all the items belonging to the other students, Gladys simply could have just paralyzed him as well. This would make the entire classroom of students having disappeared instead of this one kid, and now all eyes are on him. The other families would have then continued to demonize Justine. I also didn’t see anything that would have suggested that Alex was somehow special and that he was immune to her spells. It was also evident that Gladys didn’t care for him. The only thing I can think of would be that it might have been hard to stage Alex running out of his own house at 2:17 a.m. as all the other kids were converging on his house?
2. Why the dreams? In the beginning, we see Justine and Archer having horrible nightmares where they see Gladys’ creepy clown face. OK, why? Why would she do that and force more attention to herself if it was indeed her?
3. What exactly was Gladys’s purpose? I’m sure it was to stay alive, but why the kids and having them locked in the basement? Justine mentioned “parasite” during one of her lectures, and that was obviously a hint/reference that Gladys was leeching the life force of the kids, but is that really it?
4. At first, it seems that Gladys has some special voodoo power that only she knows how to wield. However, towards the end, we find that to be untrue when we see that Alex was able to turn the tables on her. Does her power run in the family bloodline, making Alex also capable of using it? Or was it just due to some special branch/twig? 🤣

When it comes down to it, Weapons’ story is pretty simplistic. It looks very obvious to me that all the other stuff being done, like the different character perspectives and personal story, is just to cover this up. There are a lot more questions than answers after the credits roll when I don’t think it needed to be that way had they just spent more time executing on perfecting a better story to tell than whatever fancy stuff they did here. But, Weapons is still a movie worth watching. We only get a couple of these high-budget horror films each year, and so each one released is a must-watch, in my opinion, for horror fans.