Sinister truth behind this year's creepiest horror flick
Horror maestro Stephen King took to X earlier this week to describe Weapons as 'confidently told, and very scary,' before offering a rare bit of praise: 'I loved it.'
And for fans of unsettling cinema, the film mostly delivers - though not always in the way you might expect.
Director Zach Cregger (Barbarian, 2022) leans into well-timed humour for relief, with laugh-out-loud moments that almost verge on comedy-horror.
But the movie isn't purely comedic - there are genuinely creepy moments too, like when a character climbs into the back of Miss Gandy's (Julia Garner) car while she sleeps.
The scene had my cinema neighbour squirming in his seat, and even his movie-length sundae couldn't distract them from the spinechilling image of Alex's brainwashed parents sitting on the couch - a shot that instantly reminded me of the eerie living room scene in Jordan Peele's Us.
One elderly viewer even muttered, 'What was that? I'm not sleeping tonight,' proving the film still hits the fear nerve for some.
Weapons balances the absurd with the disturbing. Jump scares are so overdone they verge on intentional satire - and perhaps the theatrical, Marvel-level shock factor is unsurprising given the actors behind Silver Surfer, Thanos, and Wong all make an appearance.
Yet beneath it all runs a thread of unease: corrupt cops (Alden Ehrenreich), teachers crossing boundaries with students, alcoholism, and fears around HIV ground the horror in unnerving reality.
Josh Brolin's tenacious Archer Graff experiences one of the film's most surreal sequences in a nightmare where a giant AR-15 floats above his house, the time 2:17 displayed ominously.
Film theorists immediately connected it to the failed 2022 HR1808 Assault Weapons Ban in the US, which passed by exactly 217 votes but was never enacted.
TikTok users have also drawn parallels to the 2018 Parkland school shooting, in which 17 students and staff were tragically killed.
Cregger told Variety the scene is 'a very important moment,' but admitted, 'what I love about it so much is that I don't understand it,' leaving interpretation open to the audience.
While most online commenters see the film as a symbol for unchecked gun violence, others argue it's about adults projecting their anger and failures onto their children.
Gladys, the witch, takes it further, literally weaponising the kids for her own selfish agenda.
Some theories even suggest her red wig, white face, and blue eyeliner represent America itself - painting the nation as the true villain.
At its core, Weapons lingers long after the credits roll, with surreal imagery, clever camera work, jarring fight scenes and layered metaphors that remind us how easily we ignore the obvious - like when several key characters encounter Gladys and fail to question her bizarre appearance, serving as yet another commentary on humanity's tendency toward inaction.
For anyone expecting a standard jump-scare fest, the terror isn't conventional - at most, I'd say my heart rate barely crept up to 75 BPM - definitely not nightmare fuel.
'The true horror came from the drama of that boy's (Alex's) predicament. Where he continued to go to school and couldn't say anything. Nothing to do with jump scares or scary demonic entities. Just terrible family values,' commented one X user.
And while the spooky trailer of kids running through dark, empty streets had me hoping for a horror flick to finally rival Scott Derrickson's Sinister (2012), it's the movie's unusual approach that makes it so effective.
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ABC News
32 minutes ago
- ABC News
Sesame Street's long history of great music continues — here's why
The music of Sesame Street lives rent free in many of our brains. Songs like The People in Your Neighbourhood, Rubber Ducky, and C Is For Cookie introduced us to the soothing, educational and celebratory powers of music. They delivered little shots of pure joy into our lives. They helped raise us, and continue to comfort and delight the young people we cherish today. These days, children around the world rinse all manner of kids songs of varying qualities ad nauseam, but there's a sophistication to the work from history's most famous kids show that has set it apart since it first aired in 1969. "When you have a child who's singing one of your songs and doesn't even know that it's a learning thing at the same time, that is really the ultimate thing," says Bill Sherman, Sesame Street's long-time music director. "It's not meant to be subliminal by any means, but in the same way we teach the ABCs in classrooms, a song is just another mnemonic way of learning something. "The great songs on Sesame Street are the ones that do two things: they get stuck in your head because somebody wrote a great song, and whatever that thing is that's in your head is something you're learning. "If you can do both of those things at the same time, that is a successful Sesame Street song. And a successful learning experience. I think that both are equally as important." Sesame Street has perhaps had the best musical guest list of any TV show in history. From Destiny's Child to Dave Grohl, Billy Joel to Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder to Carrie Underwood, Smoky Robinson to Katy Perry, most artists of note have figured out how to get to Sesame Street. The latest season, which is screening now on ABC Kids, features influential R&B chart topper SZA, folk heart-throb Noah Kahan and the Zeitgeisty Reneé Rapp. A particular highlight of this year's soundtrack comes from country star Chris Stapleton, whose song You Got A Friend In Music feels like a future Sesame Street classic. It's a tribute to music's ability to heal, with Stapleton's soulful, gruff-yet-toasty vocal reminding kids (and the rest of us) that there's a song to match every mood. "Chris Stapleton is one of those people that when he opens his voice, you can't imagine that he could do anything else," Sherman says. "He exudes music. Even when he talks it sounds melodic. "Another guy who's like that is Ed Sheeran, who's just unbelievably musically oriented. "It's really an honour to get to work with them, and to co-write a song is one of the great joys and achievements in life." In his tenure at Sesame Street, Sherman has worked with many of modern music's biggest names, and says there's no one size fits all approach to a successful collaboration on the show. "Some artists really have an idea of what they want it to be like, and how they want to experience Sesame Street, and how they want to lend themselves to it," he says. "[Stapleton] was dead set on writing a song, so he wrote this song and sent it to us. Most of it is what you hear. We have our curriculum goals and our educational goals, and we've got to implement those back into the song. "Sesame Street's been around for a very long time, and there's a very high level of musicianship and history. Getting songs together is sometimes a difficult task because the level is so high. But with a guy like Chris Stapleton, he comes in with so much that it's just sort of sculpting and moving parts around." While Sherman is no slouch on the tools — his past credits as a producer, orchestrator and arranger include Broadway smashes like Hamilton, In The Heights and & Juliet — he reckons his key role is directing the creative traffic. "I think my job in a lot of this is like setting the table, bringing everybody over to have dinner and then, whatever happens at dinner, just trying to guide it to be the best thing. "It's just putting the right people in the room and making sure that everybody knows the end goal, and then figuring out the most graceful, efficient way to get there. "And not being a jerk, just being a nice person helps." It also helps to have an inherent understanding of the magic the artist you're working with possesses. "I think the best compliment I can get is when we go to shoot it, and they're there and they go, 'Oh my God, this song sounds like it should be on my next record.' That's only happened like two or three times, but that to me is the ultimate compliment." A song like The Power Of Yet, Sherman's 2014 collab with neo-soul shapeshifter Janelle Monáe, is a strong example of a song that fits with an artist's own creative approach. "I had just seen her in concert and there was so much James Brown happening," he recalls. "There was so much gut funk, awesome horns and dancing and everything. "I just wanted to make something where she could do all of that. She could really sing, and then she could really have a full dance break moment and all this stuff. "She did the vocal and it was awesome, and she was just super into it. As I watched her move and dance, she became like her own Muppet, her own character of Janelle Monáe on Sesame Street. It was such a fun day, and such a great thing to watch and be a part of. She was super into it. She took some liberties on the melody and did all this stuff that really made it hers." It's artists like Monáe, those willing to fearlessly embrace the Sesame Street experience, who tend to get the most out of their time on the show. Sherman has spent over a decade on the set and admits the novelty does wear off. But it doesn't take much for that magic to return. "You see a celebrity who clearly had watched Sesame Street in their childhood walk in and they're just totally amazed and totally transfixed," he says. "What I think happens, whether it's consciously or not, is you sort of revert back into being a child. When you get around Big Bird and Elmo and Cookie Monster, you can't help but lean into the magic of it all and be totally seduced by it all. "Those artists that come in and let the exterior of being a famous person go away and just revisit their childhood and let that happen, they have these awesome experiences. Watching them just sort of melt in front of these characters and these puppets is a really eye-opening experience. While the music is always fun, Sesame Street takes its reputation as an educational resource seriously, and is forever ensuring its messages are constructive. Sherman's personal favourite songs from his childhood are C Is For Cookie and Bein' Green, two enduring examples of early Sesame Street composer Joe Raposo's incredible work. "The guys who were the founding fathers of Sesame Street music were such heavy musicians and such heavy composers," Sherman says. "I think people assume that children's music is simple. It's not just like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the ABCs, they took the simplicity of melody and applied it to jazz and pop and rock'n'roll and bossa nova, and mushed it in together to create this new sound. Which is what made Sesame Street in the early days, and what I'd like to think today, so cool. It's genreless." Kids are famously tough audiences with tiny attention spans and no filter. On top of that, Sherman believes they now access a broader range of music than ever and, as such, their standards have become even more discerning. "People assume when you're writing songs for kids that it's being dumbed down for children or written in a certain way. I always feel like it's my responsibility to fight against that. "Because my children are 12 and 14 and they have very sophisticated ears. The way that they retain lyrics, or the way that they retain melodies and ideas, is on such a different level than when I was a kid. "When new composers come to write for Sesame Street, I say, 'Don't think like you're writing a song for a child. Just write a good song.' It's not that it should pass the test of being for an adult, it's that a children's ears are so sophisticated that everybody's listening to the same things all the time. "The key for me is not to write like a kiddie song, but also to be sophisticated. But, at the same time, be repetitive, do call and response, do those things that make the songs really stick in a kid's head. "Write an earworm verse and an earworm chorus with the prayer that, if you write a great song or great chorus or great hook, then that will hook both the song and the educational idea into the child. I think then you've succeeded all around." Season 55 of Sesame Street is currently screening on ABC Kids and ABC iview Families can hear songs from Sesame Street on the ABC Kids Listen app, streaming 24/7.
News.com.au
6 hours ago
- News.com.au
Jamie Lee Curtis breaks silence over those viral pictures
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News.com.au
6 hours ago
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Nip/Tuck star Dylan Walsh in terrifying car crash weeks after co-star Julian McMahon's death
Nip/Tuck star Dylan Walsh and his family were involved in a terrifying car crash over the weekend, just weeks after the death of his co-star Julian McMahon. The actor, 61, was inside a 2022 Ford Explorer with four other passengers when the car smashed into two utility poles in New Jersey on Sunday, reports TMZ. The car was original driving northbound around 5pm before it abruptly swerved into the southbound lane and hit the first pole, Rumson Police Department told the outlet. The car kept moving and eventually slammed into another utility pole. Two of the five passengers in the vehicle were later transported to Riverview Medical Centre after complaining of pain. At this time, it remains unclear as to who the two patients were and who was driving the SUV. According to local outlet Rumson Patch, eight residents lost power as a result of the crash. Though, power was later restored to the area. The utility poles have also since been replaced by Jersey Central Power & Light and the road has reopened. Photos of the accident obtained by TMZ showed the collision caused significant damage to the front of the car and both airbags were deployed in the front seats. The trunk of the car also showed a major dent. A rep for Walsh confirmed the accident involving the actor and his family and provided an update on their health in a statement to Page Six. 'Thankfully, everyone is safe and has since returned home. The family is deeply grateful for the swift response of the Rumson Police, Fire Department, and EMS, as well as the staff at Riverview Medical Center for their care,' the statement reads. 'They would also like to extend a special thank you to the management and staff of The River Point Inn for their support in the immediate aftermath.' Walsh's accident comes over a month after his Nip/Tuck co-star Julian McMahon died following a private battle with cancer. He was 56. At the time, Julian's wife, Kelly, confirmed his death in a statement saying that he passed 'peacefully' in Clearwater, Florida. 'Julian loved life. He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved his work, and he loved his fans. His deepest wish was to bring joy into as many lives as possible,' Kelly shared.
