Weapons (2025) Review

Weapons (2025) is the best horror movie of the year. One with a deceptively simple premise. At 2:17am, 17 children from the same school class all disappear. The movie follows the aftermath of this disappearance. It follows the point-of-views from several characters related to the story. The teacher of the class that vanished, a parent of one of the missing children, a cop investigating the case, a drug addict trying to claim the reward for finding the children, and the remaining child of the class. 

The way the movie is structured is very satisfying. Each point-of-view segment takes place within the same timeframe, so each new character offers context to the events previous. The main mystery of the movie is not solved by any one character, but rather they each provide a piece to the puzzle, with the film getting progressively better as it goes on. 

The beginning of Weapons does a great job at portraying how real people would react to a strange happenstance such as seventeen children disappearing. The human stories are completely reasonable, and you immediately understand the issues they are facing. They are characters in a horror movie, but when you understand the background of the movie, their motives start to make sense. The schoolteacher Justine is blamed for the vanishing, and so she continually tries to speak with the remaining child from her classroom. The parent, Archer, is grieving the loss of his child, so his drastic and brash decisions are understandable. 

As a horror movie, it works out great. I am not generally a fan of horror, but I can appreciate the camera movements that work to create unsettling shots, and how it works to combine the uncanny with the normal. The movie also doesn’t get too ahead of itself with the scary moments. There is rarely a scene or detail that exists without good reason, and it does not resort to ‘shock horror.’ 

I do have a criticism of Weapons, being that it sometimes stretches the plot in favor of establishing the mystery. In the case of Arthur’s chapter, I felt as if several elements were simply there to be confusing, not regarding whether Arthur would know any of the information being shown. The points are not explained or elaborated on later in the film, they exist just to establish one of the major characters and the themes of the movie. 

The movie excels as a commentary on the trauma that older generations can impart on the younger ones. Without getting into the territory of spoilers, the main message is cleverly laid out in a fashion which encourages the audience to try to piece it together themselves. Questions are asked and answered with an obscure detail later. The final chapter of the movie, revolving around Alex, the remaining child, is brilliant. All the answers are given, but the new character introduced still keeps tensions high as you wonder how a child will be able to bear such burdens.

Overall, Weapons is a fantastic movie that excels as a mystery. In particular, I loved the non-linear way it was structured, allowing time to understand each character. Even as a non-fan of the horror genre, this movie stood out to me as just a phenomenal film, combining the intrigue of the plot and the horrifying concept into a thrilling narrative.