
‘Weapons' review: The best horror movie of the summer
Running time: 128 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content and drug use). In theaters.
During this lazy summer of comatose sequels, nothing has been scarier to Hollywood than an original idea.
So how sweet it is that one of the freshest and best movies of sweaty season is a brand new, freakily creative story from the horror genre.
No cardboard IP here.
But plenty of RIP.
The sharp and explosive 'Weapons,' from 'Barbarian' writer-director Zach Cregger, is powered by a quality the big screen has all but surrendered to more riveting TV dramas: Unpredictability.
Right from the spooky intro, in which we learn that 17 fifth graders from the same suburban classroom all mysteriously ran away from their homes at 2:17 a.m. one night and went missing, the plot unfolds in ways startling and twisty, disturbing and deceptive.
The experience is akin to being blindfolded and thrown into a trunk — except fun!
The film's main question: Where did all the kids go?
3 Julia Garner and Josh Brolin star in 'Weapons.
AP
Could their disappearance be a coordinated kidnapping, an act of God or perhaps an alien abduction?
That's an intense problem to solve. One lost child in a film means high stakes, a ticking clock and big adult feelings. Multiply that by 17.
Something feels off about the community from the start. There are hints of the rapturey HBO drama 'The Leftovers,' as well as the recent warped 'Longlegs' with Nicolas Cage and the not-so-recent 'Blair Witch Project.'
Cregger adds a bit of 'It' and 'Stranger Things,' too, in the way the movie probes the dark crevices of a seemingly nice, sleepy town as young people confront pure evil.
But who's to blame for the crime?
3 Seventeen kids in a single classroom mysteriously go missing.
AP
The angry locals believe it's the teacher Justine (Julia Garner). They vandalize her car and stalk her. But the cops can't find any evidence to implicate the pithy, secretive woman.
Just one little boy in the class didn't vanish — Alex (Cary Christopher, a 2025 Child of the Corn). He's gotta know something, right?
Our final answer is peculiar and outlandish — frightening, oddly funny, eccentric, spine-tingling, grotesque and ultimately sad.
To arrive there, Cregger has built a puzzle that's told in chapters, each devoted to a different character.
One belongs to Josh Brolin as a dogged parent, and another goes to Austin Abrams' comedic Anthony, a burnout drug dealer who could be friends with someone named Silent Bob. Alden Ehrenreich, a great actor who hasn't been around much lately, plays a troubled cop.
And Amy Madigan does a delicate dance as Aunt Gladys.
3 'Weapons' is told in chapters, each devoted to a different character.
AP
Garner, who exudes an energy that suggests she might pick a fight with somebody at the grocery store, fuels that sinister Main Street, USA, vibe with her enigmatic 'Ozark' persona. The vicious actress is herself a weapon.
Most of the grown-ups here are deeply and engrossingly flawed: self-interested addicts, weirdos and brutes. In their own odd way, they each help the tale reach its satisfying conclusion, even if many of them don't make it to the credits. No real hero emerges until the last 10 minutes.
This year, many movies have been boring, flabby, unnecessary, nostalgic, dumb, cheap or a burrito bowl of all of the above.
But I was never less than superglued to 'Weapons.'
Clever Cregger proves, as Ryan Coogler did with 'Sinners' back in the spring, that horror not only often has the most blood — it's got the most guts.
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New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
‘Weapons' review: The best horror movie of the summer
movie review WEAPONS Running time: 128 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content and drug use). In theaters. During this lazy summer of comatose sequels, nothing has been scarier to Hollywood than an original idea. So how sweet it is that one of the freshest and best movies of sweaty season is a brand new, freakily creative story from the horror genre. No cardboard IP here. But plenty of RIP. The sharp and explosive 'Weapons,' from 'Barbarian' writer-director Zach Cregger, is powered by a quality the big screen has all but surrendered to more riveting TV dramas: Unpredictability. Right from the spooky intro, in which we learn that 17 fifth graders from the same suburban classroom all mysteriously ran away from their homes at 2:17 a.m. one night and went missing, the plot unfolds in ways startling and twisty, disturbing and deceptive. The experience is akin to being blindfolded and thrown into a trunk — except fun! The film's main question: Where did all the kids go? 3 Julia Garner and Josh Brolin star in 'Weapons. AP Could their disappearance be a coordinated kidnapping, an act of God or perhaps an alien abduction? That's an intense problem to solve. One lost child in a film means high stakes, a ticking clock and big adult feelings. Multiply that by 17. Something feels off about the community from the start. There are hints of the rapturey HBO drama 'The Leftovers,' as well as the recent warped 'Longlegs' with Nicolas Cage and the not-so-recent 'Blair Witch Project.' Cregger adds a bit of 'It' and 'Stranger Things,' too, in the way the movie probes the dark crevices of a seemingly nice, sleepy town as young people confront pure evil. But who's to blame for the crime? 3 Seventeen kids in a single classroom mysteriously go missing. AP The angry locals believe it's the teacher Justine (Julia Garner). They vandalize her car and stalk her. But the cops can't find any evidence to implicate the pithy, secretive woman. Just one little boy in the class didn't vanish — Alex (Cary Christopher, a 2025 Child of the Corn). He's gotta know something, right? Our final answer is peculiar and outlandish — frightening, oddly funny, eccentric, spine-tingling, grotesque and ultimately sad. To arrive there, Cregger has built a puzzle that's told in chapters, each devoted to a different character. One belongs to Josh Brolin as a dogged parent, and another goes to Austin Abrams' comedic Anthony, a burnout drug dealer who could be friends with someone named Silent Bob. Alden Ehrenreich, a great actor who hasn't been around much lately, plays a troubled cop. And Amy Madigan does a delicate dance as Aunt Gladys. 3 'Weapons' is told in chapters, each devoted to a different character. AP Garner, who exudes an energy that suggests she might pick a fight with somebody at the grocery store, fuels that sinister Main Street, USA, vibe with her enigmatic 'Ozark' persona. The vicious actress is herself a weapon. Most of the grown-ups here are deeply and engrossingly flawed: self-interested addicts, weirdos and brutes. In their own odd way, they each help the tale reach its satisfying conclusion, even if many of them don't make it to the credits. No real hero emerges until the last 10 minutes. This year, many movies have been boring, flabby, unnecessary, nostalgic, dumb, cheap or a burrito bowl of all of the above. But I was never less than superglued to 'Weapons.' Clever Cregger proves, as Ryan Coogler did with 'Sinners' back in the spring, that horror not only often has the most blood — it's got the most guts.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Laura Loomer testified that Bill Maher's joke about her sleeping with Trump torpedoed her chance at White House job
MAGA extremist Laura Loomer recently testified in her $150 million defamation lawsuit against Bill Maher that the HBO star's joke about her sleeping with Donald Trump ended up costing her a position at the White House because of the 'media frenzy' it created. Loomer, the self-annointed Trump 'loyalty' enforcer whose influence with the president has seemingly risen in recent months, sat down for a deposition last week with HBO's attorney. And, as Puck reported, it quickly became 'every bit as unhinged as one might expect.' The lawsuit, which Loomer filed in October of last year, centers on a September 2024 episode of Real Time where the comic suggested that Loomer's sudden ascendance in Trump's orbit was due to the two of them engaging in a sexual liaison. 'I think maybe Laura Loomer's in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she's very close to Trump. She's 31, looks like his type,' Maher quipped. 'We did an editorial here a few years ago… it was basically, who's Trump f***ing? Because I said, you know, it's not nobody. He's been a dog for too long, and it's not Melania. I think we may have our answer this week. I think it might be Laura Loomer.' In her complaint, Loomer alleges that she was subjected to 'unjustified ridicule, embarrassment, loss of reputation and professional opportunity, as well as being damaged financially' by the joke, adding that the comments were 'false, malicious and defamatory.' She also claimed that Maher denied her request for a public apology and an invitation on his show to 'mitigate prior and any further damage.' Maher's joke, meanwhile, came days after Loomer accompanied the then-candidate to a presidential debate and events commemorating the 9/11 attacks, prompting concerns from advisers and allies about her unofficial campaign role. During the final days of the campaign, he would publicly distance himself from her, all while promising his aides that he'd stop regularly inviting her on his flights. During her deposition, which was briefly on the public docket last week before being sealed by Magistrate Judge Philip Lammens, Loomer looked to make the case that she would currently be working in the White House if it weren't for Maher. Throughout the questioning from attorney Kate Bolger, Loomer boasted about her increasing clout with the president, stating that he first became impressed with her adversarial 'reporting' on GOP presidential rival Ron DeSantis in 2023. Loomer noted that she would soon be invited to Mar-a-Lago and that Trump told Susie Wiles, his current White House chief of staff, to immediately hire her. Instead, Loomer stated, that didn't happen because the news was leaked to the New York Times, which reported that her hiring 'would cause a backlash, given her history of inflammatory statements and her embrace of the Republican Party's fringes.' The Times later appended the story to point out its reporting had 'ignited a firestorm' among the MAGA base and resulted in Trump backing off. Still, according to Loomer, she continued to enjoy access in Trumpworld and estimated that she'd visited Mar-a-Lago at least '20,30 times,' flew around with Trump, and submitted a resume for an administration job. She also recalled that on the flight to Trump's debate with Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, she showed him what she said was a police report after he asked if the rumors about Haitian immigrants in Ohio were real, leading to the infamous 'eating dogs' moment. Bolger, meanwhile, pressed Loomer on why she was so certain it was Maher's joke – which came days after the debate – that doomed her job prospects with the president. 'Other than Bill Maher, can you name a single human being on all of Planet Earth that believes what Bill Maher said?' Bolger asked, prompting Loomer to respond: 'It's up for interpretation.' Loomer went on to say that Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita would later tell her she wasn't welcome back on Trump's plane because of the 'media frenzy' the HBO host's joke had sparked. Elsewhere in the deposition, Bolger brought up the lengthy history of inflammatory commentary from Loomer, a self-described 'proud Islamophobe' who has made numerous accusations about the personal lives of other prominent political figures. This could have potentially been an effort to establish that Maher's one-off line about Loomer wouldn't have done any meaningful reputational damage to the far-right provocateur. That did lead Loomer to bring up her ongoing feud with fellow MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Loomer accused of being 'very jealous of me' and not well-liked by Trump's staff. Naturally, a sitdown with Loomer wouldn't be complete without a nasty swipe, which Bolger received when the plaintiff took aim at her past representation of Disney in the ABC News lawsuit that was settled with Trump. 'I'm not going to be gaslit by a Democratic lawyer who represents fake news media,' Loomer fumed. While Loomer may not have a White House job, and the six-figure salary that comes with it, she has been patting herself on the back lately over the amount of influence she supposedly wields with the president. Claiming to have played an outsized role in the abrupt firings of more than a dozen high-ranking administration officials over what she says is insufficient loyalty to the president, who she has repeatedly declared her 'love' for, Loomer recently joked that one of her friends now calls her 'Trump's Rasputin.'


New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
'Outlander' spinoff stars reveal why sex scenes were 'daunting'
It's all in the family. The hit series 'Outlander' now has a spinoff, 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood,' premiering Friday, Aug 8 on Starz (8 p.m. ET). 'One of the main things ['Outlander' star Sam Heughan] said to me right at the start was just to enjoy every single moment as much as you can,' Jamie Roy, who stars in 'Outlander: Blood of my Blood,' told The Post. 11 Caitriona Balfe as Claire Randall, right, and Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser in 'Outlander.' AP 11 Sam Heughan, Hermione Corfield, Jamie Roy, Harriet Slater at Los Angeles premiere of 'Outlander: Blood Of My Blood' on July 28, 2025. Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/MEGA 'Outlander' premiered in 2014 (based on a bestselling book series), and will end with Season 8 at an unannounced date in 2026. The original show follows Claire (Caitriona Balfe), an English nurse from 1945 who time-travels back to 1743, where she falls in love with the Scottish highlander, Jamie Fraser (Heughan). 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood' is a prequel about the dual love stories of Jamie's parents, Brian Fraser (Roy) and Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater), and Claire's parents, Julia (Hermione Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine). Heughan isn't in 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood,' since it shows Jamie's parents falling in love before he was born. Slater and Roy, however, have met the actor who plays their on-screen 'son' at various events promoting the show. 11 Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) with Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) in 'Blood of My Blood.' Starz Roy revealed that Heughan gave him the advice that 'There's going to be tough days. But ultimately, take a step back and look at what you're doing and how lucky we are to be able to do this sort of thing.' He shared, 'I've taken that [advice] with me.' The Scottish actor added that Heughan 'literally was texting me [at the premiere], checking in on me. Saying, 'How are you doing? Are you coping okay?'' 11 Jamie Roy with Harriet Slater in their video interview with the Post. The New York Post 11 Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) in 'Blood of My Blood.' Starz Roy said that Heughan's messages 'really means a lot more than I can say, to have that kind of support.' Slater told The Post that she didn't try to imitate Heughan's mannerisms while playing his on-screen mother, but she and Roy 'both watched 'Outlander' while shooting Season 1 of 'Blood in My Blood.'' The 'Pennyworth' actress added, 'I think I just absorbed the spirit of Jamie Fraser and also of [his daughter, Brianna] and also of [his sister, Jenny] as well. So, I didn't try to mimic anything or learn any mannerisms or anything like that. It was more of just a general absorbing of the characters, and the core of them.' 11 Sam Heughan in 'Outlander.' ©Starz! Movie Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection 11 Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy); Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) in 'Blood of My Blood.' Starz Roy joked that fans have complimented how his performance is similar to Heughan's, but he didn't do it on purpose. 'I wish I could take credit. I worked hard, but that wasn't the stuff that I was focusing on. So any little crossovers you see are totally coincidental, for the most part.' He said that any similarities between the on-screen father and son 'just speaks to casting's ability to find actors like myself and Harriett, who do embody some certain aspects of other actors.' 11 Jamie Roy and Harriet Slater attend the 'Outlander: Blood of my Blood' premiere on July 28, 2025. Getty Images for STARZ 11 Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) in 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood.' Starz 'Outlander' is known for its steamy scenes, and 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood' also has plenty. 'I'd never done anything of this level before, and it was daunting,' said Slater. She added, 'But we have a brilliant team of support behind us. We work with an intimacy coordinator, who makes sure that we feel safe and confident before we step on set for any kind of those kinds of scenes.' Slater explained that there's always a closed set for sex scenes, 'which means there's as few people as possible, and we rehearse a lot beforehand. So that we know exactly what is going to be asked of us on the day, it's choreographed.' 11 Sam Heughan attends the 'Outlander: Blood of my Blood' premiere on July 28, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images for STARZ 11 Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) in 'Blood of My Blood.' Starz Roy quipped that doing sex scenes 'keeps you pretty healthy.' He added, 'Because I'm like, 'Well, I gotta look good!' So, I don't drink as much booze as I would have, and I eat healthier. So it's a win, I guess.'