Horror fans, brace yourselves: Weapons, the terrifying new film from Barbarian director Zach Cregger, just made a bone-chilling debut at CinemaCon 2025, and insiders are already calling it the most disturbing horror event of the year. Initially slated for a 2026 release, Weapons has been pushed up to August 2025, signalling just how confident Warner Bros. is in its spine-tingling potential. Cregger, whose breakout hit Barbarian became a critical and box office sensation in 2022, returns with what appears to be an even more mind-bending descent into terror.
A Cast That Screams Prestige Horror
Cregger isn’t coming quietly. Weapons features a powerhouse ensemble: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, and June Diane Raphael. Garner leads the cast as a small-town elementary school teacher, Mrs. Gandy, who arrives at work one morning to discover that her entire first-period class has mysteriously vanished.
According to the haunting CinemaCon-exclusive trailer, narrated by a creepy child’s voiceover, “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.”
Let that line sink in.
A Horror Plot Designed to Unravel Your Mind
What follows is a chilling spiral of parental rage, spectral visions, and an increasing sense that something unspeakable is lurking just beneath the surface. As Weapons progresses, Garner’s character becomes the focal point of suspicion, haunted by ghostly children with hollow eyes and menacing grins.
Josh Brolin plays one of the devastated parents demanding answers about his missing daughter, while a female clown figure in the woods, revealed in the trailer’s final moment, seems to hint at a much darker, possibly supernatural force at play.
Even New Line Cinema chief Richard Brener warned viewers that the film is “intriguing and unpredictable, with a nice helping of batshit insane.”
From Barbarian to Weapons: Cregger’s Ascent to Horror Royalty
Zach Cregger became a horror household name with Barbarian, which grossed nearly $50 million on a $4 million budget and became a breakout hit for Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming platform, Max. Now, with Weapons, he’s doubling down on what made him a sensation: sharp storytelling, psychological chaos, and truly nightmarish imagery.
Cregger described Weapons as a film “that unravels and reinvents itself as it goes,” suggesting that viewers can expect shocking twists and genre-defying turns from start to finish.
When and Where to Watch Weapons
Initially scheduled for January 2026, the film’s release has been moved up to August 2025, a significant vote of confidence from Warner Bros. It will now land in theatres just one week after Together, another genre standout that made waves at Sundance.
With Weapons, Zach Cregger isn’t just back—he’s here to traumatise a whole new generation of horror lovers. August can’t come soon enough.
