Weapons Reactions Have Everyone Saying The Same Thing About The 2025 Horror Movie
Zach Cregger's sophomore directorial effort "Weapons" is about to hit theaters — and though only a handful of critics got to see the horror film as of this writing, they're all giving it rave reviews.
Cregger, an alum of the sketch group "Whitest Kids U Know" who, like comedian Jordan Peele before him, broke into horror filmmaking — Cregger's debut came in 2022 with "Barbarian" — is the mastermind behind "Weapons," and as he told Entertainment Weekly, the movie just came to him. "I didn't have an outline. I didn't know what it was about," Cregger revealed. "It was just like, let the movie show itself to me. I want to watch the movie as I'm writing it."
So what do individual critics have to say about "Weapons?" Over at IGN Movies, Tom Jorgensen called the film "a righteous, fully actualized genre-bender in which writer-director Zach Cregger hones 'Barbarian's' blend of unbearable tension and dark humor to a new level of razor-sharpness." At Dexterto, Chris Tilly declared, "'Weapons' does everything a good horror movie should... it grips, confounds, terrifies, and provokes in equal measure, while also managing to entertain for every second of its runtime." Inverse's critic Lyvie Scott also loved the film, writing, "'Weapons' is as haunting and cerebral as it is almost cartoonishly funny, producing a cocktail of emotions nearly as disarming as the film itself," and Mike Manalo at Geeks of Color got right to the point: "Overall, 'Weapons' is a great time at the cinema and a well-made horror movie." So what about the other critics? Did they love "Weapons" as much as everyone else? (So far, yes.)
Critics are absolutely loving Weapons
Over at /Film — which is part of the Static Media family of websites — lead film critic Chris Evangelista was pretty effusive about "Weapons." After refusing to get into specifics because the movie is best unspoiled, Evangelista wrote, "Cregger's script slowly pulls back the curtain, eventually giving us definitive answers as to what is going on, but by the time we get to the truth, 'Weapons' has gone to dark, twisted, and surprisingly funny places. Cregger has a background in comedy and has a unique grasp on blending horror and humor. 'Weapons' is frequently scary but there are moments (like the ghoulish grand finale) that had me cackling with glee. Horror and comedy are subjective genres, and mashing them together successfully is no easy feat."
Other critics agree. Writing for CinemaBlend, Eric Eisenberg said, "It's intimate while also being epic, it's scary while expertly utilizing humor as punctuation, and even the most dedicated cinephiles will be rocked by its surprises." At The Mary Sue, Rachel Leishman wrote, "This movie, while still terrifying, is a different ride than 'Barbarian' but it was still just as captivating." Germain Lussier at i09.com called the film "a constantly surprising and often horrific mystery that blends drama and scares in a way that creates something truly special," and at Dread Central, Josh Korngut concluded, "'Weapons' is shocking, satisfying and certain to surprise even the most jaded of horror fans."
None of the critics spoiled "Weapons" outright, which is for the best; based on the movie's upsettingly mysterious trailer, it has a lot of surprises in store. So, without getting into specifics, what can fans expect from a movie that Jordan Peele himself bid on and lost — which made the Oscar winner so angry that he fired a longstanding member of his team?
Zach Cregger says that his new film Weapons is bigger and better than his previous hit, Barbarian
In that same Entertainment Weekly interview, which was conducted back in April 2025, Zach Cregger explained that "Weapons" owes a considerable debt to Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 epic "Magnolia," which boasted an all-star cast and helped coronate Anderson as one of the best American directors. Still, that doesn't give audiences much to go on, which is exactly what Cregger was hoping for.
"Weapons" is, as far as we know without seeing the movie, about a bunch of kids who disappear from their homes in the middle of the night and all happen to be in local teacher Justine Grandy's (Julia Garner) class. Cregger says that's just the start, though. "That mystery is going to propel you through at least half of the movie, but that is not the movie," he told the outlet. "The movie will fork and change and reinvent and go in new places. It doesn't abandon that question, believe me, but that's not the whole movie at all. By the midpoint, we've moved on to way crazier s— than that."
This high-concept movie is actually deeply personal as far as Cregger is concerned. "I had a tragedy in my life that was really, really tough," he revealed. "Someone very, very, very close to me died suddenly and, honestly, I was so grief-stricken that I just started writing Weapons, not out of any ambition, but just as a way to reckon with my own emotions." (Not only that, but Cregger said he brought some of his own experiences into the movie: "There's certain chapters of this that are legitimately autobiographical that I feel like I lived.")
At the end of the day, Cregger wanted to make a movie on a bigger scale than his previous effort "Barbarian," which, without spoiling it, is a story about a vacation rental gone horribly, horribly wrong. "I just like that kind of unapologetic, 'This is an epic,'" Cregger explained to EW. "I love that movie. I love that kind of bold scale. It gave me permission when I was writing this to shoot for the stars and make it an epic. I wanted a horror epic, and so I tried to do that."
"Compared to 'Barbarian,' "It is more ambitious in almost every way," Cregger continued, confirming that he took things up a notch for his second film. "I don't just mean in terms of the budget, but I just mean creatively. The story is weirder and it's twistier and it's bigger. I have way more actors to fit into this thing. The set pieces are definitely bigger. It's just a bigger, weirder movie than 'Barbarian' is." Cregger actually made a guarantee to his future audiences: "I promise you, when you watch it, you will agree with me. It is."
You'll find out much more about "Weapons" if you dare to see the film when it releases on August 8, 2025.