Zach Cregger’sWeaponshas debuted with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, marking an incredible follow-up for the acclaimed horror director.This excellentRotten Tomatoes performance forWeaponscomes as somewhat of a surprise following the divisive reception of Cregger’s previous movie,Barbarian- but still a very welcome one.
Weaponscenters around a group of children who all disappear in the middle of the night under mysterious circumstances, leaving their small town withan unsolvable mystery and only one person to blame: their school teacher. There are so many interestingtheories about what might be going on inWeapons,but one thing is for sure - it won’t be anything that audiences are expecting.
The movie is a wholly original story from Cregger’s mind, but it still invites comparisons to many other movies. With anticipation rising for the horror movie after its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score debut, there are a handful of films that you could watch beforehand that will help set the stage for its arrival.
While there aren’t too many similarities between the stories ofMagnoliaandWeaponson the surface,early reactions to Zach Cregger’s new horrorhave frequently compared the two projects thanks to their unique tones and scattered storytelling devices.Both films create a very strange and unsettling atmospherethat keeps the audience on the edge of their seats before disrupting everything with a very unpredictable final act.
Magnoliacenters around multiple eccentric characters searching for peace and happiness in the San Fernando Valley, whose lives become intertwined in almost imperceptible ways. Anderson’s film is a portrait of life at its most fleeting and unobtrusive, with characters that feel deeply personal and well-developed. The parallels betweenMagnoliaandWeaponsare no accident.
Cregger previously toldEntertainment Weeklythat Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie was a major inspiration for the bold swings he takes in the new film. He said,“I just like that kind of unapologetic, ‘This is an epic.' I love that movie. I love that kind of bold scale. It gave me permission when I was writing this to shoot for the stars and make it an epic. I wanted a horror epic, and so I tried to do that.”
Certainly a more traditional companion piece toWeapons,The Empty Mantells the story of a retired police officer who sets out to find a missing young girl and discovers a much more dangerous conspiracy in the process.It has the unsolvable mystery ofWeaponsand the sharp jump scares of other movies within the horror genre, which is the perfect combination.
Much likeWeaponsseems to do,The Empty Manblends the comforting realism of the detective genre with a more disturbing, twisted sense of the supernatural to create a very unique and unnerving atmosphere throughout. This has become a very popular subgenre of horror over the past few years, and Zach Cregger is clearly capitalizing on it withWeapons.
One of the most intriguing aspects ofWeaponsis justhow mysterious and unpredictable it seems to be, with the movie’s trailers setting up a very complex mystery that audiences will struggle to guess the answer to right away. This is also something that Denis Villeneuve achieves withPrisoners, a similarly dark and gritty thriller about a man searching for his missing daughter.
Denis Villeneuve has made several great movies, butPrisonersis the one whose suffocating atmosphere seems the most familiar toWeapons.
Besides the key themes of missing children and police investigation, bothWeaponsandPrisonersseem to have very similar aesthetics of grungy, small-town crimes that really get under the audience’s skin.Denis Villeneuve has made several great movies, butPrisonersis the one whose suffocating atmosphere seems the most familiar toWeapons.
Julia Garner is no stranger to the horror genre, having appeared in projects such asWeaponsandWolf Manthis year alone - but last year housed one of the actress’s most underrated projects to date.Apartment 7Ais a chilling supernatural horrorthat follows a young woman who moves in with an older couple and soon realizes their apartment houses a dark evil.
What makesApartment 7Asuch an effective piece of horror is that it begins as a straightforward drama (albeit with averyuncomfortable atmosphere), and methodically evolves into something more frightening and paranormal. If the early reactions toWeaponsare to be believed, this is a clear storytelling trait that the two projects have in common.
AlthoughInfinity Poolis technically more of a sci-fi than an all-out horror, the film uses its disturbing premise to get under the audience’s skin in a very similar way to howWeaponsintends to do the same. The first act is a lot of setup, but if audiences let themselves get lost in the core mysteries,both of these projects could have very shocking conclusionsthat take routesnobodycould have predicted.
Infinity Poolis a story of clones, secret identities, and cultish conspiracies that lures the audience in with a fairly simple concept and continues upping the stakes until the tension between these characters is almost too much to bear. The story, at least on the surface, follows a mundane couple who are roped into a suspicious scheme that offers to relieve them of death.
Despite all the dark mystery and eerie misdirection, at its core,Weaponsoffers a very familiar blueprint for horror movies: missing children in a small town. It’s a universally frightening concept, and it’s something that’s also explored very effectively in Scott Derrickson’sThe Black Phone. The movie stars Ethan Hawke as a mysterious serial kidnapper who traps his victims in a basement that holds nothing but a black phone.
WhileThe Black Phonereads more like a thriller on the surface,Derrickson includes lots of horror-inspired filmmaking in his movieto gradually reveal theeven darkeraspects of his crime story.Weaponsseems to adopt a very similar approach, using its core story of missing children to explore more horrific themes that aren’t evident from the trailers.
It Followshas become somewhat of a cult classic within this particular subgenre over the past decades, with audiences constantly praising itselevated writing and allegorical storytellingfor being ahead of its time. Much likeWeapons' intent,the ending ofIt Followstakes somemassiveswings that won’t pay off for everybody, but the ambition is certainly something to behold.
It’s a very eerie, atmospheric story that strongly rewards multiple viewings with its detailed storytelling and multiple interpretations.
Mitchell’s film centers around a young woman who believes that she’s been cursed following a strange sexual encounter with her new boyfriend - just to find that she’s the latest link in an ongoing supernatural chain. It’s a very eerie, atmospheric story that strongly rewards multiple viewings with its detailed storytelling and multiple interpretations.
A fairly recent addition to this particular mystery/horror subgenre, Tilman Singer’sCuckootells the story of a teenage girl who moves from America to live with her family in the German Alps. But when she begins working at her father’s prestigious holiday resort, she quickly realizes that something more nefarious is at play.
Singer’s film really keeps the audience on their toes with dark imagery and atmospheric set pieces throughout the first half, before plunging them into a twisted and disturbing conclusion that slams its foot on the gas, similar to what Cregger is seemingly going to do withWeapons.Cuckooalso features an excellent lead performance from Hunter Schafer, in only her second-ever feature-length role.
The comparisons betweenWeaponsand Jordan Peele’s filmography shouldn’t be too surprising, given how muchPeele reportedly wanted to directWeaponshimself, but there’s no denying how stylistically and formally similar Cregger’s movie seems to be toUs. The director will certainly put his own spin on things, butthe stories are cut from the same cloth.
Usfollows an innocent family who find themselves the victims of an orchestrated break-in during their vacation, only to discover that the attackers look identical to themselves. The film is a gripping mystery about duality, identity, and personhood, told through the lens of a terrifying psychological horror.
It’s been three years since Zach Cregger broke into the horror scene withBarbarian, and his debut feature remains one of the most exciting and subversivehorror movies of the 2020sso far.The story follows two young adults who decide to stay in the same holiday rentalafter they’re accidentally double-booked, but they soon discover a much more dangerous problem lurking in the basement.
What makesBarbariansuch an exciting piece of original horror is that it never lets the audience know exactly what it wants to be; there’s brutal violence, psychological horror, and even elements of romance and dark comedy that give the film a totally unique atmosphere. There’s truly nothing quite likeBarbarian, andWeaponsseems like a very interesting and unexpected next step for Cregger.
