If you’re someone who watches the movie calendar closely, you’re likely aware that August is usually not the best time to go to the theater. The movies released in August tend not to be the biggest blockbusters of the summer, but they also aren’t the types of movies that will eventually compete for Oscars. As a result, it can be a fairly barren month, stuck in between two seasons of movie excellence.
Even in that relatively barren environment, though, there are still movies that break through because of their overwhelming quality. This August, the movie I’m most excited about is Weapons. (I also have my eye on The Naked Gun.) We don’t know much about Weapons, which adds to the excitement. Let’s break down why, if you’re looking for a movie to see this August, Weapons is probably the best bet.
The teasers have been ominous but withholding
While it can sometimes be misleading when trailers refuse to deliver every single thing on a movie’s mind, Weapons has been teasing out its plot slowly and methodically. The film is about a community dealing with the mysterious disappearances of children at the same time in the middle of the night. Past that, the information we’ve gotten has been largely focused on the movie’s mood and deeply ominous tone.
While Weapons could be much less interesting than that premise sounds, the premise itself is deeply intriguing, in part because it situates the movie somewhere between straightforward horror and something more mysterious.
It has a promising director behind it
While it’s impossible to say for sure what course a director’s career will take after a single movie, Zach Cregger’s work on Barbarian has left me optimistic that Weapons will live up to all the promise on display in that film. Barbarian, a genuinely wild movie that starts with a simple premise, suggests that Cregger is bursting with ideas and has the visual flair to make them a reality.
Barbarian follows a woman booked in the same Detroit Airbnb as a kind man. When the two of them decide to stay together, she must navigate their relationship and make sure that he doesn’t pose a threat. The movie is genuinely surprising in how it develops from there, but trust me when I say that it’s the kind of movie that leaves you eager to see what a director will do next.
There’s a genuinely great cast involved
Although Barbarian had a fairly small core cast, it looks like Cregger is expanding his scope a bit for his second film. Weapons stars Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Brian Tyree Henry, Benedict Wong, and Alden Ehrenreich, among others. Garner, Henry, and Brolin are particularly exciting, as they suggest that this film has a certain weight and scope that makes it worthy of the time of pretty incredible actors.
The teasers only give us glimpses of the role each of these actors will play in the actual movie. Garner has already proven that she has the skills to captivate, and I’m hoping that Weapons will offer her the kind of material that will make her gripping.
Early reactions have been great
While it’s not always wise to trust early reactions, in this case, there’s definitely reason to be excited that Weapons could be genuinely great.
“WEAPONS rules. If you’re looking for a movie that keeps you on your toes from start to finish and delivers the unexpected time and time again, this is it,” Collider’s Perri Nemiroff said.
“WEAPONS is downright terrifying and cements Zach Cregger as a strong voice in modern horror and a master of mystery,” another person said. “I can’t recall the last time a movie gave me chills like this one did. Extremely well-structured and executed with a talented cast. Buckle the fuck up.”
“Zach Cregger has crafted a horror masterpiece and the best film of the year with Weapons! It’s Prisoners by way of Magnolia with some of the Coen’s absurdist humor,” added FilmSpeak’s Griff Schiller.
Thankfully, none of these reactions tease too much about the film itself, but they do suggest that the movie might be worthy of all the hype it’s received to date. August release dates might usually signal that a movie is not worth promoting, but they can also signal that a studio thinks they have something great on their hands, and want to give it plenty of runway to succeed. There’s reason to hope that Weapons could fall into this latter category.
Weapons opens in theaters on August 7.
