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Zach Cregger’s new film Weapons is proof that even Hollywood’s elites can still make something that grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go, but don’t let the craftsmanship fool you into thinking the industry has suddenly found its soul. The movie is a well-made, tense mystery with a top-tier cast including Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, and Alden Ehrenreich, and it opened in theaters this summer to widespread attention. The fact that such a slick production came from the same crowd that habitually lectures the rest of us on virtue signaling makes the film’s ambitions all the more interesting.
At the heart of Weapons is a bleak, attention-stealing premise: seventeen children from a single classroom vanish in the night, leaving only one student behind to carry the community’s suspicion and grief. That central mystery — the sudden loss of so many young lives and the single child who remains — gives the film its morbid magnetism and forces viewers to confront panic, blame, and the way a town unravels. It’s an effective engine for horror precisely because it touches on our deepest parental fears and questions how a society responds to unexplained catastrophe.
Audiences have rewarded the film’s pull: Weapons opened strong at the box office and returned solid grosses that helped lift Warner Bros.’ recent slate. When ordinary Americans voted with their wallets for a smart, unsettling movie, it should have been a reminder to the coastal elite that storytelling still matters to the public beyond woke manifestos. The financial success shows there’s appetite for tense, adult horror that actually respects the audience’s intelligence.
Critics have largely praised the movie’s craft and audacity, handing it high marks and calling it one of the more interesting genre entries this year. Rotten Tomatoes and other review aggregators reflect that critics see Zach Cregger’s film as a sharp, well-made piece of work with a lot to say, even if some argue it doesn’t answer every question it raises. Fine reviews don’t inoculate a film from legitimate ideological critique; they simply confirm the studio can still make something that looks — and sounds — expensive.
Several mainstream reviews, including thoughtful takes in major outlets, note that Weapons can be read as a school-shooting allegory or at least as an examination of American paranoia after violence, and that interpretive layer has become unavoidable in today’s cultural climate. That reading is understandable, but here’s the conservative objection: turning real national tragedies into metaphors for moralist sermons or fashionable critiques of institutions cheapens actual victims and substitutes catharsis for accountability. When Hollywood prefers ambiguity that absolves real-world actors over honest reckonings, it reveals more about the creators’ priorities than about any artistic mystery.
For all its virtues — performances, tension, and craft — Weapons’ glaring flaw is its comfort with ambiguity as a moral stance. Instead of offering real answers or insisting on personal responsibility, the film at times seems to relish the murk, allowing the audience to stew in righteous indignation without giving anyone a clear responsibility to shoulder. Conservatives want stories that recognize evil, name perpetrators, and call for real solutions, not endless interpretive exercises that leave the public angrier and no safer. That lack of moral clarity is what will keep Weapons from being remembered as truly great rather than merely stylish.
There are still bright spots: small details in production and collaboration, including anecdotes about creative contributions from industry friends, show that good filmmaking can come from teamwork rather than ideology. But patriotic Americans should watch Weapons with pride in the craft and a healthy skepticism of Hollywood’s habit of moralizing tragedy for narrative points. Go see the movie if you want to be entertained and provoked, but don’t hand your culture over to studios that prefer sermonizing over straightforward truth and accountability.
