CinemaCon attendees just got their minds melted by the first trailer for Weapons, the next twisted creation from Barbarian director Zach Cregger, and we were there to witness the madness! This thing is coming for our nightmares.
While the trailer wasn’t released publicly, we saw it behind closed doors , and if you thought Barbarian went to some wild places, Weapons is about to blow the doors off.
The film stars Julia Garner (Fantastic Four) as an elementary school teacher who shows up to class one morning only to discover that every single student is gone. That’s the starting point. That’s where we begin.
The plot spirals from there, featuring a cast stacked with familiar faces like Josh Brolin (Dune), Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange), and Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story).
But it’s the tone and visuals that apparently shook people at CinemaCon. One specific moment from the trailer if of a child’s voiceover, creepily saying:
“Mrs. Gandy’s room was totally empty. Because the night before, at 2.17 am, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs and into the dark, and they never came back.”
The trailer shows scenes of children sleepwalking with eerie smiles, vanishing into the blackness like they’re being summoned. The final shot is of a horrifying figure lurking deep in the woods and it sent chills up my spine. It looked like a female clown. Nightmare fuel unlocked.
New Line Cinema president Richard Brener hyped it up perfectly during the presentation, calling the film: “Intriguing and unpredictable, with a nice helping of batshit insane.”
And Cregger himself teased that Weapons isn’t what it appears to be at first glance: “A movie that unravels and reinvents itself as it goes.”
If you saw Barbarian, you already know Cregger isn’t afraid to yank the story out from under you. With Weapons, it sounds like he’s ready to double down on that approach and seriously scare the hell out of audeinces.
Weapons hits theaters August 8th.
