When Zach Cregger entered the horror feature scene, he didn’t tiptoe — he detonated expectations. Barbarian was less a debut than an ambush: a grimy, surprising, and brutally effective tale that revealed the monstrous rot beneath the airbrushed façade of Airbnb America. Its impact was seismic enough to place Cregger alongside names like Ari Aster and Jordan Peele — auteurs reshaping horror into the cultural mirror it was always meant to be. So when Weapons, his sophomore effort, sparked a bidding war (with Peele among the contenders), it was more than a surprise — it was a coronation in waiting.

Needless to say, Cregger won that war — and what he’s delivered is not Barbarian 2.0, but something stranger, more ambitious, and arguably more fractured. Weapons is a moody mosaic of trauma and silence, a sinister Rubik’s Cube where every rotation deepens the dread.

The premise? Devastatingly simple: seventeen children vanish in a single night from a third-grade classroom, leaving behind one silent survivor. From this incomprehensible event, the narrative spirals outward — or perhaps downward — following a grieving parent, a guilt-ridden teacher (Julia Garner in one of her finest, most haunted performances), a cop on the edge, and a child forever changed. But where other films would tighten their grip around whodunit logic, Weapons unspools into something looser, more hypnotic, and more unsettling.

Like Magnolia if directed by a sleep-deprived David Lynch with a grudge against PTA meetings, Weapons stitches together fractured timelines and parallel points of view. What emerges is not a thriller in any traditional sense, but a psychological pressure-cooker about grief, complicity, and the invisible rot hiding beneath the manicured lawns of America’s suburbs.

This underworld — literal and figurative — is fast becoming Cregger’s signature terrain. In Barbarian, it was the basement: that dread-soaked labyrinth of generational abuse buried beneath a “perfect” Detroit neighborhood. In Weapons, there is no single basement, but many — emotional caverns, buried truths, suburban crypts dressed as cul-de-sacs. The “what lies beneath” motif returns, only now it’s diffused across an entire town, each household its own cracked mask.

Cregger’s knack for dissonant tonal shifts — likely honed during his time with the absurdist comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know — is used here not just for comic relief, but as a narrative landmine. Just as you settle into one emotional register, he flips it: tragedy becomes absurdity, horror becomes farce, and laughter curdles into a scream. The comedy doesn’t soften the horror — it accentuates it, like a smile too wide on a corpse.

Though Weapons doesn’t carry the shocking immediacy of Barbarian, it proves Cregger isn’t a one-trick provocateur. He’s a filmmaker drawn to structure — and its collapse. He’s fascinated by what people repress, and what happens when that repression becomes radioactive. What makes this second feature particularly resonant is its willingness to linger, to disorient, and to drag its audience down into the darkness without the promise of catharsis.

Josh Brolin, as a grizzled, emotionally feral father, grounds the film with a gut-punch performance that crackles with grief and rage. And Garner’s turn as Justine Gandy — a character navigating guilt, authority, and maternal ambivalence — is quietly devastating. Their presence not only adds gravitas, but signals that Weapons is aiming beyond the horror niche. It wants to haunt, not just horrify.

Yes, Weapons will divide. It lacks the clean arc of a traditional mystery. It demands attention, patience, and a willingness to fall into its emotional sinkholes. But for those attuned to its wavelength, it’s a rewarding descent — a fever dream that lingers in the bones.

The Prognosis:

Cregger has once again shown that he isn’t just interested in jump scares or gore. He wants to excavate — to dig through the ruins of modern life and see what festers beneath. With Weapons, he’s pulled up something malformed, tragic, and oddly beautiful.

The question isn’t whether he’ll push boundaries in future films. It’s whether we’ll be ready for where he takes us next — or what lies buried when we get there.

• Saul Muerte