‘Weapons’: This summer’s film phenomenon is a horror

Its director has said on various occasions that he wants viewers to approach Weapons as if unraveling a great mystery. Zach Cregger also believes that telling you what the movie is about means ruining half the fun. As such, it is complicated to share details of one of the summer’s great film phenomenons, an original horror movie that once again, demonstrates that some of Hollywood’s most unique filmmakers are working in the genre.

The movie cost around $38 million to make and has already grossed close to $148 million worldwide since its August 8 release, tripling its budget after just over a week. In so doing, an original and personal film has bested franchise installments like Freakier Friday and Karate Kids: Legends.

Weapons’ success is also testament to the fact that summer belongs to scary movies, though you could almost say that for any season of the year at this point, as demonstrated by various 2025 releases. Amid the fall from grace of superhero films, which are no longer racking up the expected numbers at the box office, horror is emerging as a more cheaply produced alternative, a collective experience in the theater that unites an all-ages public.

Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth chapter of the Final Destination saga released in May, made more than $280 million, with its seventh instalment already confirmed. At the beginning of the year came Companion and The Monkey. In the summer, aside from Weapons, there was the release of 28 Years Later and even another I Know What You Did Last Summer. A particular standout was Sinners, a major release that touches on the blues and African American cultural history. Directed by Ryan Coogler, the movie has earned more than $365 million since its April debut.

Viewers this year have also been introduced to Together, the farewell of The Conjuring, the second Black Phone, Predator: Badlands and teen phenomenon Five Nights at Freddy’s.

A year ago, director Paul Schraeder asked on Facebook: “What is it about independent film that talented young filmmakers can only find financing and distribution in the horror genre?” Osgood Perkins, director of Longlegs, 2024’s most successful horror movie, provided one response in an article that came out soon after in EL PAÍS: “That implies that terror is lesser-than and that everything has already been said. But there is an appetite for it. There may be silly movies, but horror deals with the infinite, with curiosity about the great mysteries of existence, about what we cannot touch or answer. There are no gardens more fertile.” Álex de la Iglesia, who calls himself a fan of Perkins and Ari Aster (whose film Eddington was released in July), confirmed to this newspaper that the genre is riding high not just commercially, but creatively. “It has become the real space for art and plot. There are original, insane stories with tremendous creative liberty. The most creative people are there. It’s where you see things that stick with you, that in other fields have disappeared. These days, I’m only interested in horror directors,” he says.

Weapons serves as good illustration of that creativity. One of the keys to its success lies in its number of cinematographic references. Cregger’s most often cited source of inspiration is Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, particularly regarding its structure. Like Magnolia, Weapons is a tale of interwoven stories from the same community, different perspectives of a traumatic event — in this case, the disappearance of nearly all the children from the same class in school on a single night, save one.

Another reference Cregger points to is Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, a dark story of obsession and desperation about families whose lives change when two little girls disappear. The Weapons director harkens back to that film in his characters’ fits of rage and the movie’s dissection of the suburban world. Then there are the classic inspirations: The Shining, the films of David Lynch and even J.A. Bayona’s The Orphanage, for the way it “weaponizes those kids,” as Cregger put it in an interview with Letterboxd.

Interestingly, this gritty, human story also includes quite a bit of comedy. Before becoming a horror filmmaker, Cregger was part of a comedy troupe. That said, his laughs are never forced or over-produced, which means that not all viewers react in the same way in theaters. Some laugh, while others look around with an expression of “what’s so funny?”

All these elements, coupled with an intelligent marketing campaign, has made Weapons the cinematographic event of August. But just a year ago, its future didn’t look very promising. After the 2024 writers’ and actors’ strikes, the Warner-distributed film lost nearly all its initial stars: the omnipresent Pedro Pascal, Brian Tyree Henry, Tom Burke and Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) to other commitments. Only Austin Abrams (Euphoria) remained attached in a cast that would now be unthinkable without its other faces: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong, Alden Ehrenreich (with a mustache akin to John C. Reilly’s in Magnolia) and above all, longtime supporting actress Amy Madigan, whose surprising and intimidating appearance in the film became a meme mere hours after it hit theaters. It was kept a secret until the premiere, similar to Nicolas Cage’s look in the horrifying Longlegs.

Another important part of the success of Weapons may be its personal iconography and mythology, built up through shots full of movement. Its imagery becomes engrained upon first viewing, similar to last year’s The Substance, from each character’s motivation, Madigan’s persona, the rituals and the way they show through a subjective lens how each player interacts with the world around them. Add to that mix personal details from the filmmaker’s own life and Weapons becomes an auteur project, subject to many interpretations.

In fact, the movie was born out of Cregger’s need to confront the death of a loved one, and makes metaphoric reference to his parents’ addictions, and his own alcoholism that developed later on. It’s also easy to see allegories relating to U.S. school shootings. “Weapons is a movie that’s very much like me looking inwards and inventorying my shit, my life. It’s an autobiographical movie in a lot of ways,” the director told Slashfilm. Although, not to the letter.

“Don’t think making this movie has exorcised any demons. It’s just given me an opportunity to engage with those feelings in a healthy, constructive way. Rather than going and drinking myself to death, I’m able to write a character that drinks herself into a problem. I can take my anger and have Josh Brolin [the distraught father] freak out, and that’s better than me freaking out,” he explained to Variety.

Cregger had already been crowned a horror director on the rise after his last movie Barbarian became a cult classic in 2022. That feat was achieved through a mixture of Airbnb social terror and pure genre madness. Brolin, who was also executive producer, admits he was surprised by the final product, saying he didn’t fully understand the movie and that it was his children who led him to see it differently, and understand its phenomenon. A few days ago, the actor gave the publication Collider another reason why he thinks Weapons has captured the public’s imagination. “You’re looking for great filmmakers, and you’re hoping that there’s another new good filmmaker out there,” Brolin said. “Right now, with so much content, you’re just watching things on whatever streaming service you’re on, and you’re just going, ‘Fuck, why is this so boring, man? Why?’ And just go to the next thing. It’s all the same shit. And then somebody not only takes the horror genre, but then fucks with it and then does something on the edge of absurdity, and it’s sort of humorous, so it’s keeping you off-[balance] enough for him to have an emotional impact, ultimately.”

The director is now preparing to sink his teeth into the multi-million franchise Resident Evil, hoping to capture what he felt playing the video games that inspired the saga. His latest installment will star Austin Abrams. Meanwhile, Warner is courting him for a return to the Weapons universe with a prequel focused on Madigan’s character, whose perspective was left out of the film’s final cut (at over two hours, Cregger felt there were already enough narratives, and now the decision may have left him with another potentially winning film). He also has more original stories in the tank: Henchman, about a small-time thug in the DC universe, and the science fiction script Flood.

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