Weapons

This week we are reviewing Weapons, the 2025 supernatural mystery horror film written and directed by Zach Cregger — the man behind Barbarian — starring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong and Amy Madigan.

At exactly 2:17am, seventeen children from the same third grade classroom simultaneously leave their homes and vanish into the night, arms outstretched, as if summoned. One child does not go. Nobody knows why.

 

The film unfolds in overlapping chapters from different perspectives — a grieving father, a scapegoated teacher, an out-of-his-depth cop, a homeless addict, and finally the ancient, malevolent aunt who has been bending the children to her will.

Before any of that, the Scotsman warns listeners about AI voice cloning — scammers can now replicate your child's voice from five seconds of voicemail. "This is the next stage of spamming and scamming." The Aussie zones out halfway through. The Scotsman notices immediately.

Shoes are next. The Scotsman's kids leave them in piles at the front door. He has bought shoe racks. Nobody uses them. The Aussie responds by pulling the story entirely around to some old Asics he found at the back of his own cupboard. The Scotsman is briefly furious.

On the film — both hosts are unimpressed and not shy about it. The Aussie picked it. He is on the receiving end immediately. "You're on a two week ban. I'm picking the next two." The Scotsman calls it "mumbo jumbo" and "Hollywood gone bad."

The specific grievances are pointed. Seventeen children go missing and Josh Brolin's investigation involves drawing lines on a map with a ruler, then knocking on a neighbour's door to ask politely about their security camera. The neighbour says no. He accepts this and leaves. "Who is writing this crap?" Nobody has a satisfying answer.

Credit where it is due: the overlapping chapter structure is clever, Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys is genuinely unsettling, and Benedict Wong's one-shot chase into the petrol station is well constructed. The premise remains brilliant. The execution does not match it.

Superstitions spiral out from the discussion. The Aussie claims no belief in the supernatural — then admits he will not walk under a ladder or open an umbrella indoors.

The contradiction is noted. Feng shui, tarot cards, and a T-intersection property that cost a friend hundreds of thousands in lost buyers all get a run.

Rohan Reminisces covers 2025 — Anora winning Best Picture, Elon Musk at $342 billion, and the Coldplay kiss cam moment that broke the internet. It is brief. The Scotsman is not wrong to call it brief.

Trivia: $38 million budget, $268 million gross. Cregger wrote the script in his garage next to a running washing machine. Pedro Pascal was originally cast before Brolin replaced him. A full Aunt Gladys backstory was cut for time. And finally — Cregger has accepted $20 million to direct the Resident Evil reboot having never seen a single film in the franchise, announced he is ignoring everything prior, and described his approach as *"making a film about a character I have invented inside a world I am inventing."* The studio said yes. September 18, 2026 will tell us whether that was genius or catastrophic hubris.

Ratings: 2.3 from the Scotsman, 1 out of 5 from the Aussie. Both would rather rewatch Sinners. High praise it is not.

The podcast is out now on YouTube and also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Please hit subscribe or follow — it genuinely helps us be seen among the thousands of other podcasts out there. Thanks for your support.

• Likes
• Download24
• Share