Weapons
Director: Zach Cregger
Writer: Zach Cregger
Cast: Julia Garner, Cary Christopher, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong, Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan, June Diane Raphael, Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera, Melissa Ponzio, Sara Paxton, Justin Long
Seen on: 22.8.2025

Content Note: antisemitism, misogyny, alcoholism

Plot:
One night, at exactly the same time, 17 of the 18 children of Ms Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) class got up from their beds and ran off into the darkness. Nobody knows where they’ve gone or why they went away. As everybody is looking for answers, tensions run higher and higher. Justine is blamed by some and barred from talking to Alex (Cary Christopher), the remaining kid. Parents are grieving, and there is definitely something strange going on.

Weapons was well-made and engaging, but unfortunately it is just a straight-up reenactment of antisemitic and misogynistic witch stereotypes. It is frankly astounding that the film got made the way it got made.

[SPOILERS]

For me to explain my criticism of the film, I have to spoil it, so beware. The thing is, it turns out that Alex‘ aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) is an evil witch who is dying unless she gets some fresh energy – from the children she all kidnapped. An evil witch who takes children to become young(er) again is a misogynistic trope if ever there was one. Coupled with Gladys wearing a wig and dressing like a straight-up caricature of Fran Drescher’s Nanny’s grandmother, this plays into the extremely antisemitic version of this trope established (at the latest) by Roald Dahl’s Witches. And there is no subversion in the film. There is no criticism of that. It is just this, served up fresh for audiences in 2025.

In fact, the grand finale consists of the children ripping the evil, evil witch apart with gusto. That is the great showdown that everything heads for. It is damning indeed. (And one could probably also think more deeply about the fact that the domesticity of the gay couple in the film is constantly rendered absurd, and they are the only couple to be torn apart by the story in that way.) (Also, the fact that the cop in the film actually gets poked by a drug user’s needle in the most ridiculous way.)

It is a pity, especially because the script gives us a very interesting narrative structure with several point of view strands that come together nicely. It also manages its tension extremely well, at least as long as we don’t know what is happening, and really had me hooked. And the performances are fantastic, as is the characterization of the main adults that get to be rather more complex than I would have expected.

The film has some really effective emotional moments, but I did feel a little nauseated coming out of it. It just fits better into 1938 than 2025 – and even then, it would have been a harbinger of the nazi doom to come. Let’s hope that it isn’t that for our current time.

Summarizing: this could have been good if it hadn’t been so biased.