‘Barbarian’ Director’s New Horror Movie: ‘We Can’t Stress How Upsetting Some Of This Footage Was’
"There are images in there that I can still see in my brain that are just terrifying."
After the horror movie Barbarian became a major surprise hit in 2022, fans have been impatiently waiting to see what writer/director Zach Cregger will do next. This week Cregger revealed the first look at his next project, Weapons, at CinemaCon. The response from attendees is overwhelmingly positive with Variety raving “We can’t stress how upsetting some of this footage was.”
Weapons stars Josh Brolin and Julia Garner as two members of a small Florida community where all the children have suddenly gone missing. The trailer’s voiceover lays the scene: “Mrs. Gandy’s room was totally empty…Because the night before, at 2:17 a.m., every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs and into the dark and they never came back.” The missing children then return to haunt the townspeople as disturbing little kid ghosts. The intertwining plots in Weapons center around themes of police corruption, generational trauma, blood rituals and religious abuse.
CinemaCon attendees describe the Weapons trailer as “absolutely terrifying” and “on the same level” as Barbarian.
If you like horror movies, this thing is a complete nightmare… There are images in there that I can still see in my brain that are just terrifying. I’m going to have nightmares because of this trailer.
GeekTyrant, ‘Weapons’ trailer reaction
Intriguing and unpredictable, with a nice helping of batshit insane.
New Line Cinema chief Richard Brener, describing Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons’
This is all promising news for horror fans hopeful Cregger can recapture the magic of Barbarian. The trailer will likely be released soon on YouTube, but it is not yet available to the public. The early response has been so favorable that the film’s release was moved up from January 2026 to August 8, 2025.
