Mark our words, when Halloween rolls around this October, there’s going to be one costume that all on-the-pulse horror buffs will be clamouring for: Aunt Gladys.
A Hoxton-via-the-old-folks’-home ginger wig with a teeny fringe; red lipstick smeared around her mouth, Gladys’ arrival halfway through Weapons — the second feature film from acclaimed Barbarians director Zach Cregger — marks the entrance of one of 2025’s most instantly memorable characters, brought to gleefully freakish life by Amy Madigan.
We shan’t give any more away than that, but Madigan’s scene-stealing turn is indicative of a film that, throughout, gives equal weight to darkly comic laughs as to jump scares.
Slowly piecing together the puzzle of why 17 children from the same class all disappeared at 2:17am one fated night, Cregger creates a world of suspense and slow resolve, where the grotesque (and a couple of scenes will have your stomach lurching) and the nightmarish run simultaneously alongside far more everyday horrors: societal witch hunts, dodgy police, a post-Adolescence fear of exactly who or what is brainwashing our kids behind closed doors.
It begins with a young voice narrating the scene as the children are seen separately running from their houses, arms outstretched like wings as they hurtle, bullet-like towards an unknown endpoint. The only kid left in his class the next day is a quiet boy named Alex, played convincingly by nine-year-old Cary Christopher.
From there, the story is told through six intertwined perspectives: flawed school teacher Justine (Julia Garner), Archer (Josh Brolin) the father of one of the missing children, Alden Ehrenreich’s complex cop Paul, drug addict Anthony (Austin Abrams), Andrew the Principal (a standout from Benedict Wong) and Alex himself. Each shift answers questions laid out before but begets new ones; as an exercise in tension, it makes Weapons’ 128 minute run time fly by.
If the first two-thirds of the film are played relatively straight, and more like a thriller than an out and out horror, then Cregger earns his 18 certificate in the final portion.
As Weapons gets wilder, however, so does the sense of humour that’s not even nestled below the surface but very much sitting alongside it. If you enjoyed the bonkers roll out of The Substance, chances are you’ll like this. It all makes for a winning watch, with more layers than your average scare fest and a twinkle in its evil eye.
