In 2022, former internet sketch comic Zach Cregger took the horror world by storm with his $4 million dollar film Barbarian. Hinging on a millennial meet-cute at a double-booked home rental, Barbarian surprised audiences with its casting misdirections and mid-film rugpull to drum up an incredibly positive word of mouth that led to a $45 million domestic return in theaters and helped the film earn a place on countless internet lists of the “best movies on streaming.”.
Now Cregger is back with his latest film “Weapons,” which hit it big at the box office and seemingly solidifies Cregger as one of the most exciting voices in horror alongside directors like Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and Robert Eggers. Weapons begins in the direct aftermath of a mass disappearance. An entire elementary school class, minus one student, walked outside of their homes one night, ran off into the distance, and didn’t come home. As the town demands questions and looks for who to blame, the audience is taken on a surprising, terrifying, and totally engrossing journey through the perspectives of several citizens who are circling this case. Cregger has cited Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia for its shifting narrative perspective and Aster’s Hereditary for its modern horror mastery as influences on the film, and I’d cite Stephen King small-town classics like Salem’s Lot and Needful Things as stories that give similar vibes to Weapons. That is to say: this is exactly the kind of thing I live for.
Weapons is the most fun I’ve had at the movies this year, watching it in a packed audience that inhaled with every new horrifying image and laughed loudly with every storytelling curve-ball. With star turns from Ozark alum Julia Garner, Oppenheimer standout Aldren Ehrenreich, and Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Weapons may just be the newest entry in the 2020s horror pantheon.
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