Julia Garner in New Line Cinema's thriller "Weapons," out Aug. 8, 2025.
The mystery thriller "Weapons," out Aug. 8, 2025, keeps crowds in suspense over what happened to a classroom of third graders that disappeared into the night.

Looking to get your thrills at the theaters? "Weapons" might be your best bet.

The latest offering from "Barbarian" director Zach Cregger released Aug. 8 and is getting horror movie buffs in movie theater seats – and maybe even startling fans out of their IMAX chairs.

Running just over two hours, "Weapons" is told from six characters' perspectives. It stars Julia Garner as a third grade teacher, Benedict Wong as the school's principal and Josh Brolin as a student's dad. The film's logline is: "When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance."

The mystery thriller has earned an impressive 96% certified fresh score from film reviews compiled by Rotten Tomatoes and boasts a 90% rating from theatergoers as of release day. Here's what the critics are saying about "Weapons:"

'Weapons' is a 'spine-tingler' that maintains suspense

Manohla Dargis, the New York Times' chief film critic, called "Weapons" a "spine-tingler" in her review.

Noting Cregger succeeds in "creating and maintaining an ominous mood," Dargis assured horror fans will be kept on the edge of their seats with drawn-out plot reveals.

"He winds you up, keeps you on edge, calms you down only to wind you up again," Dargis wrote. "The tension tends to pulse on and off like a hard-working blender."

Amy Nicholson from the Los Angeles Times also commented on the film's suspense, writing, "Cregger is great with details. He gets a fantastic, audience-wide gasp just from the noise of a door opening off-screen."

Benjamin Lee, east coast arts editor for the Guardian US, agreed "Weapons" offers "some wonderfully rattling shocks and moments of seat-clenching unsureness."

Though he was not too impressed by Cregger's 2022 solo directorial debut, "Barbarian," he came away with a "better" feeling about this follow-up, Lee wrote in his review. Rating "Weapons" three out of five stars, he agreed the film's pacing and suspense succeeded.

"It’s a tantalizing set-up, pitched somewhere between Stephen King and the Brothers Grimm, and Cregger’s careful slow build keeps us in thrall for the most part," he wrote.

Shouting out the "excellent cast," Lee applauded the "magnetic drip-feed mystery plot that unravels so compellingly that it takes us a while to notice how empty it all is."

The ending of 'Weapons' is 'outlandish,' 'grotesquely funny'

For her review in The Times, Dargis called "Weapons'" ending "a shocker of a finale that’s so outlandish."

But she acknowledged the lead-up to the resolution might not work for some people.

"The stuff in between the start and the finish isn’t as successful, including a murder that edges into gleeful sadism and some disappointingly creaky horror-film clichés," she argued.

Nicholson with the LA Times agreed the thriller is not immune to "clichéd beats." But, she noted, "The ending is strong and satisfying and leaves you discontented in all the right ways."

The Guardian's Lee wasn't as impressed and wrote: "The finale might up the violence to a wince-inducing level but it doesn’t cut anywhere near as deep as it could have, chaos without meaning."

Bilge Ebiri, a film critic for Vulture and New York Magazine, teased the ending is "a great release" and features "one of the more grotesquely funny climaxes in recent horror."

But, like Nicholson, he also warned: "If we leave Weapons with more questions than answers, that’s surely intentional."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Weapons' comes out: What critics say about the 'spine-tingler' horror movie

Reporting by KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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