
‘Weapons' public review: Horror fans praise the film and performances, call it 'a genre masterclass'
Blending mystery, horror, and sharp social commentary, the film tells a story through interconnected events and characters, with each chapter peeling back more unsettling layers. It's a slow burn packed with jaw-dropping moments, haunting visuals, and unexpected emotional weight.
Early public reviews have been overwhelmingly positive — though not without debate.
One viewer summed up the buzz: 'I have not seen a single bad Weapons review… horror fans, we are really eating good this year (sic).' Others highlighted the film's most terrifying scene, with one post saying: 'Everyone was screaming for 30 seconds when this scene happened in Weapons. Literally an all-timer scare (sic).'
Veteran actor Amy Madigan has also received high praise for her role, with one fan stating: 'Her performance was unforgettable. She secured a spot in the horror hall of fame with this character (sic).'
But not everyone sees Weapons as a straightforward horror film. One user commented: '#Weapons is NOT a horror movie. Especially not the way it was advertised. #WeaponsMovie IS a dark comedy (sic).'
Still, most agree that Zach Cregger has delivered something bold. 'Weapons has changed the game,' one post reads. 'A genre masterclass of genuine fear and soul-rocking imagery. Cregger is firing on all cylinders (sic).'
For many, it's a film worth returning to. 'Weapons is the kind of movie where you're already planning your second viewing the moment it ends (sic),' shared one excited viewer.
'Weapons' is a 2025 American mystery-horror film created by Zach Cregger, who serves as writer, director, producer, and co-composer. The film features an ensemble cast including Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.
The story centres on a chilling event in which seventeen school children vanish without a trace on the same night, all from the same classroom. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that a strange, unseen force may be behind the mass disappearance.

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The word 'marriage' is reduced only to its initial letter, m. Is there some symbolism in this? Perhaps. Working as a companion piece to 'This Marriage', the poem realistically foregrounds the ambivalences and difficult spaces in any marriage. The tableau motif indicates the performative nature of marriage. There is blushing too, and concealing of things that cannot be shown to the public. But whatever these secrets are, they are buried, they are fermenting. Reading along the grain, one could easily read the poem as a critique of marriages made merely to gain societal approval through show-off and performance of shallow rituals. However, to my mind, the last three lines, 'Secrets buried / in the back garden / ferment', indicate change, transformation. Fermentation, as a process, entails breaking down complex sugars to simpler compounds. Later, new materials emerge from this process – bread, yoghurt, beer. Perhaps, the metaphor suggests that beneath the pressure surface of societal expectations lies the potential for growth and renewal for any marriage, much like the fermentation process that transforms ingredients into nourishing staples. Another facet of the collection that stood out to me was the 'place poems', such as 'Waiheke Within', 'Vacay at Myrtle Beach', 'Kashi Triptych', and 'Tiruvannamalai'. Rao reconstructs space by chiselling images from words. Precision and clarity of her descriptions allow readers to immerse themselves in the landscapes she evokes, creating a vivid sense of place that resonates with emotional depth. Gaston Bachelard, in this regard, has written in his book, The Poetics of Space, that 'space that the imagination has seized upon cannot remain indifferent to the measures and estimates of the surveyor. It has been lived in, not in its positivity, but with all the partiality of imagination'. In 'Kashi Triptych', the city of Kashi is reconstructed through meditations on the cycle of loss and rejuvenation that are imposed upon it by the images of the poem. In Kashi, where, 'shadows hover anxious like dogs marking corners of terraced ghats as lovers drink mirrors a curly soot rains upon the free bereft and pundits claim ashes still warm from midnight pyres for altar coffers at dawn' The quest for salvation commingles with concern for altar coffers. The poem sharply captures the duality of existence that is performed each day in the city, whose funeral ghats are busy 24x7. But it turns upon itself and expands what it set out to say, with the end lines, 'Ash can't swim Hangs on to algae on hulls Falls into arms of corals Scraped and bitten by fish Shat along gorges and flats Why else do river beaches shine' Thereby showing how the act of dying becomes the prerequisite of living/sustenance. The poem is rich with dualities: dying–living, human world–natural world, movement–stasis, and so many more. This act of expanding upon itself, transcending its own boundaries, provides the poem with the potential to capture 'fuller', 'deeper', 'higher' truths about human existence. And perhaps, that is why in the Preface, Rao subtly urges the reader to seek the meaning of a poem in the poem itself. As she writes, 'You are multitudes'. And so is 'good' poetry. Mani Rao's poems offer the space to encounter multitudes of meanings and possibilities of being, in all their rich, in-between ambivalences. Read them. Ankush Banerjee is a poet, a masculinities studies research scholar, and Reviews Editor at Usawa Literary Review. His book of poems, Field Notes on Kindness, is forthcoming.