Jakarta. Zach Cregger’s mystery horror “Weapons” has caught attention for its perfect scores on Rotten Tomatoes. And yes, the reviews are right as the movie becomes a strong contender for the best horror movie of 2025, competing against the Philippou brothers’ “Bring Her Back”.

“Weapons” starts off with all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanishing on the same night at exactly the same time. The parents are after the teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), demanding the woman to take responsibility.  Alex Lilly (Cary Cristopher) is the only child from Gandy’s class who did not disappear, and as expected, becomes an important piece of the puzzle. Josh Brolin, known for being the Avengers’ purple-skinned super-villain Thanos, plays Archer Graff -- the father of one of the missing children, Matthew. 

"Weapons" plays with shifting perspectives. The inclusion of different points of view becomes a strong point in the movie that clocks in at 128 minutes. The narrative unfolds through different perspectives, starting with Gandy to the poor boy Alex himself for the final act.  It has the right amount of jump scares, all managed to shock me.

The film has Gladys Lily (Amy Madigan) as the big bad. She is Alex’s aunt, and someone who will certainly haunt your dreams the night after you watch “Weapons”. But rather than the black magic, it’s the clownish makeup and her annoying personality that actually make my skin crawl. Imagine if you see a clown in the woods, you will probably run off just like James (Austin Abrams), a homeless drug addict who is also key to unraveling the story. 

Perhaps this is where “Weapons” and strong horror contender “Bring Her Back” share some similarities. Their villains are two people who can make you uncomfortable just by their interactions alone. Both also know some type of black magic.  Even though “Bring Her Back” explores the emotional side and grief of the antagonist. In Gladys’ case, the sickly woman claims to be doing the black magic to stay alive. 

With missing children being the story’s focal point, “Weapons” also turns its audience into children. It piques our childlike curiosity. We wonder what actually happened after seventeen kids got out of bed at 2.17 a.m. and disappeared into the darkness. All of them even ran in a similar manner, just like a carefree child.

Before we learn of Gladys, the movie also had me wondering if we were up against a zombie infection, demonic possession, or some kind of kidnapping. But the best thing to come out of this movie is how satisfying the ending is: how Alex turns the tables around and has his classmates gang up on Gladys. This scene, in a way, reminds me of those children's movies that I used to watch back in the day, except they did not have any gore. And just like those children's movies, this horror mystery has a happy ending.

“Weapons” is now playing in Indonesian cinemas.