I saw the new Zach Cregger film, Weapons, on opening weekend, and frankly, I haven’t rested since.
You see, the film hinges on the idea that at 2:17 in the morning, 17 kids from the same third-grade classroom woke up, walked out their front doors, ran out into the night, and did not return. This is pitched as the central detail of the film, but for anyone who has seen Weapons, they know this is a lie.
Sorry, I don’t mean to be the spoiler guy, but I am tired—nay, exhausted—by the bait and switch tactics used by big Hollywood and modern horror to lure me into a theater only to be duped by one of the film’s core themes. The central element of Weapons, at least to me, is the platter of hot dogs.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
If you’re thinking, “Justin, I don’t remember the hot dogs,” do not fret. We are not all built the same. Somewhere around the start of act three, there is a scene where school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong) is at home with his partner Terry (Clayton Farris) preparing for what appears to be lunch when a student’s aunt, Gladys (Amy Madigan), stops by Marcus’ house with some concerns for her nephew, Alex. I will not get into the nitty gritty here, but let me just say this: Marcus and Terry are not long for this world. Representation matters, in both life and death.
Before tragedy strikes their home (including one of the loveliest film kitchens I’ve seen outside of a Nancy Meyers flick), Terry stands at the kitchen island where he fixes a platter of food that includes seven mustard-adorned hot dogs, four cookies, a sensible bowl of baby carrots, two handfuls of chips, and a small vat of ranch.
Now I spent a lot of the third act nestled, safely, in the crook of my husband’s arm because I am triggered by potato peelers and witchcraft, but for this particular scene, I didn’t miss a single detail. And neither did a lot of you.
Extremely funny that the gay couple in WEAPONS were about to house 7 hot dogs before ol girl showed up pic.twitter.com/Wh1x5IU3Wb
— Colton (@ColtonRMurphy) August 11, 2025
The seven hot dogs thing in #Weapons / #WeaponsMovie is a tribute to Trevor Moore. pic.twitter.com/8T95v4TuDv
— Courtney Howard (@Lulamaybelle) August 11, 2025
“thanks for the spoilers” and its just a tweet saying that at some point in WEAPONS gay guys eat a platter of hot dogs
— tyler “llewyn” taing (@tylerllewtaing) August 11, 2025
time for lunch 😋 pic.twitter.com/Mcj6hP2WZK
— Letterboxd (@letterboxd) August 11, 2025
in Weapons there’s a gay couple about to dig into an insane tray of hot dogs i walked out of that theater hungry as hell lowkey pic.twitter.com/962q5891Wo
— josh (@joshfruito) August 8, 2025
My controversial take about the movie Weapons is that the hot dogs tray looked delicious pic.twitter.com/cLPsA8JpPz
— If Catherine lives, you won’t wake up in the dark (@Backwards_Chic) August 11, 2025
When I saw the spread, I thought, “Oh, they must be having a little get together. Perhaps a barbecue!” but then Terry walked that platter into the living room, sat that tray down between the two of them, and then they settled in to eat those hot dogs Bert and Ernie-style in front of the TV. And that moment opened up a whole Nathan’s Famous box of questions and feelings.
First off, credit where it’s due: mustard-only is the superior way to eat a hot dog, as too many toppings can be unnecessarily messy and, as President Obama recently said, ketchup is for children. But the mechanics of seven hot dogs, eaten inside, for lunch, is absolutely ludicrous.
Let’s start with the number. Big Hot Dog™ has been hoodwinking us for a while by famously putting eight hot dog buns into a pack while the dogs themselves are notoriously sold in packs of ten. However, on this particular tray, Terry has chosen to only make seven. With the addition of two cookies, several chips, and at least three to five fluid ounces of ranch (carrots do not count) each, that’s a lot of food on top of three and a half hot dogs. But who’s eating half a hot dog?
When making a tray of hot dogs—a tray that would have easily fit eight, if not for the placement of the cookies—why would you stop at seven? Who is eating that seventh hot dog? And if you’re already committed to eating three dogs, why not simply invest in a fourth for both of you? Are we not essentially at the inflection point of how useful the remaining buns will be? Just make the extra hot dog. Where do you have to be after this, your mid-day meal of three to four hot dogs, plus sides?
Beyond the tray itself, there’s something to be said about the conditions in which the hot dogs were planned to be eaten. There is a short, but definitive, list of foods that should be eaten specifically outside, or after the sun has gone to bed. This includes: s’mores, hamburgers your dad makes on a grill, funnel cakes, those sausages that get cooked with onions and peppers, consumer packaged goods that have been repurposed for deep frying, and hot dogs.
There was something chilling about the idea of two people looking at each other and saying, “For lunch today, I’m going to make us the better part of a pack of hot dogs, and we’re going to eat them inside, in daylight, where all the world can see.” It’s not right, and it’s not natural. If you’re going to eat hot dogs inside your house, it should be done the same way you watch porn: at night, by the light of your laptop, and filled with shame as soon as you finish.
And of course, when police come to investigate the scene, they will inevitably come across the untouched tray of dressed hot dogs. What will they say? Who lives, who dies, who tells that story? I just imagine two detectives walking in, surveying the horrific scene, and then stumbling across the tray, only to mutter, “Goddamn, that’s a lot of hot dogs.” Then again, maybe I’m giving the police too much credit in this story. Once you watch the film, I think we’ll all agree that we’re not dealing with the Mariska Hargitay-level, top brass here.
All this said, I do want to commend the choice of “hot dog” as the meal of choice for this modern family. The gay community is often stereotyped for its dietary choices; we are typically relegated to vodka sodas or protein powder or poppers, so the narrative choice of selecting hot dogs, albeit seven of them, is refreshing.
In a time when so many rights are being stripped away from LGBTQ people, we must continue to find the absolute smallest, most niche signs of progress, and make no mistake this is one.
So when you go to theaters to see Weapons, which you absolutely should do, you can say that you were prepared for the one thing I wish someone had warned me about: the jump scare that is the platter of seven hot dogs. There’s also some stuff about soup and blood and maybe salt, but I can’t tell you everything.
The post ‘Weapons’: We Need to Talk About That Crazy Hot Dog Scene appeared first on The Daily Beast.
