Weapons - Die Stunde des Verschwindens

1) I love horror movies.

2) I avoided all trailers, marketing and reviews, so I am not a victim of overhyping.

3) I felt like this would be another example of a movie that will be unanimously praised and lauded as the best/scariest horror movie of the year. That seems to be the case.

4) Six stars is a positive score, but this review will be mostly negative as I try to explain why I didn't like this more.

5) The mystery is built masterfully. But once we find out who or what is behind the horror, all I could think is, "That's it?" I hoped there was more to the story or somewhere interesting the plot could go from there. But there really isn't.

6) They keep telling us more about the flawed characters, and have them involved in drama, which I enjoyed as it happened. But it doesn't come into play even a tiny bit, not with the story or any character arcs.

7) There are some really good horror elements and jaw-dropping moments. But I ask myself if I would watch this again, and the answer is... probably not.

8) It's a good movie, but I can't help but feel underwhelmed.

(1 viewing, opening Thursday EMX 8/7/2025)

I'm tired, so I'll make this brief. I was entranced for the first and second act of this movie. Like, I was really into it. And that's rare these days, as I often find myself checking out in a lot of movies because the writing is just awful, and it's obvious that the director and producers don't care about half the crud they make anymore. But this was different. This was something special. I was actually really enjoying myself-pretty much all the way until the end. But then something changed. And it changed fast. It suddenly switched to a comedy. I was jolted out of my entrancement and was suddenly reminded that people who make movies nowadays just can't help themselves. Do they hate their audience? Do they just not understand their audience anymore? Or does the audience just love crud now, so they feel obligated to give it to them?

WHY did they play the end for laughs? WHY did they take a dive into the absurd? It wasn't by accident. The director clearly wanted us to have a laugh, but I just didn't understand why. All that buildup just to have a laugh at the absurd? I just don't get it. I don't regret seeing this, but knowing what I know now, I will never be revisiting this movie.

There's a steady hand at work building tension as the movie progresses but unfortunately it all leads to a rather dull climax. You get hints of an explanation, and I'm not the type of person who needs everything spelled out, but it feels as though the film simply ends things "because it's time." I appreciate the different storylines overlapping and converging but it all felt pointless by the time the credits rolled. I'm also not sure what tone the director is going for here. There's certainly a horror element, but I've seen it classified as a dark comedy and I don't know that I would remotely consider it in that category. The acting is fine and the photography is decent but there's nothing here that you haven't seen before in better packaging.

Honestly, I don't know if I watched the same film everyone else is raving about, but I'm pretty sure my brain was left waiting in the lobby the entire time. The movie is long. Too long, too slow, too... boring. And yet, somehow, it still manages to feel overstuffed. Imagine a film that wants to be edgy, intense, and dramatic, but instead just flatlines.

The multiple points of view were supposed to add depth or suspense, I guess, but instead they just fragmented the story and made it even harder to care about any of the characters. It felt like a patchwork of perspectives that didn't really go anywhere, leaving me more bored than invested.

I waited the whole movie for something to happen... and nothing happened.

Sure, it's original, I guess, but by the end, I wasn't scared, I wasn't impressed - I was just relieved it was over.

I liked Creggers' Barbarian a lot, but he didn't entirely stick the landing for me. Weapons is his sophomore effort, and you can see the confidence in direction and story telling is more refined. I had a blast watching this, as much as i love serious horror, Weapons wasn't afraid to inject some huge laughs to release the tension. Its gonna be hard to choose between this and 'Bring her Back', as my fave horror of the year thus far...