Following up Barbarian can’t be easy. Not only was it an excellent horror movie, but it also had one of the biggest and best twists in recent memory. So instead of simply matching the surprise of Barbarian, it seems like director Zach Cregger is aiming to build something far bigger and creepier with his sophomore film, Weapons. The first full trailer for the movie released on Tuesday and it’s absolutely terrifying and mysterious enough to get us excited.
The trailer is pretty upfront about the movie’s overall plot: At 2:17 a.m. one night, Ms. Gandy’s class get out of their beds and leave their houses, wandering out into the night, never to be seen again. And no one knows why. It’s a genius set-up for a horror movie, and a viscerally upsetting concept to even consider, which is why the rest of the trailer is about the town dealing with the fallout of these missing kids. Parents blame the teacher, the teacher investigates to clear her name, and all kinds of shocking and horrifying stuff gets uncovered.
At least, we think that’s how it goes. What we know for sure is that the back half of this trailer makes Weapons look pretty scary. The entire ending of the trailer is a montage of bad things happening, including a person stabbing themselves with a fork, some ghoulish faces, tons of gore, and plenty of children running through the night toward some unknown destination.
Cregger said in an interview with EW that Weapons is far bigger than Barbarian, telling multiple stories and forking and changing several times through the runtime. With this trailer, it’s easy to get a sense of what he means. It’s clear that the mystery will drive much of the story, but the trailer suggests that Weapons is as much about how different people in this town react to the tragic disappearance of these kids as it is the disappearance itself, and that could certainly make for a fascinating movie.
The film stars Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), Julia Garner (Ozark), Alden Ehrenreich (Oppenheimer), Benedict Wong (3 Body Problem), and Austin Abrams (Euphoria). Weapons is set for release in theaters on Aug. 8.
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