Why you can trust usWe independently evaluate the products we review. When you buy via links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read more about how we vet products and deals. Cary Christopher in Weapons. (Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection)Hello, Yahoo readers! My name is Brett Arnold, film critic and longtime Yahoo editor, and I'm back with another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything. The best horror movie in ages and one of the best movies of the year, period, is here: Zach Cregger's Weapons hits theaters nationwide, including IMAX screens. It has company at the box office: the 22-year-later Disney legacy sequel Freakier Friday also opens wide, as does Sketch, an indie gem worth seeking out that kids and adults will both enjoy.
At home, the blockbuster Jurassic World Rebirth is newly available, as is The Pickup, a new action-comedy with Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson, which is streaming on Prime Video. The Stephen King adaptation The Monkey comes to Hulu, as well as a few more new options on streaming services you might already be paying for.
Read on, because there's something here for everyone!AdvertisementAdvertisementWhat to watch in theatersMovies newly available to rent or buyMovies newly available on streaming services you may already have🎥 What to watch in theatersMy recommendation: WeaponsWhy you should watch it: Zach Cregger's highly-anticipated follow-up to his sleeper hit debut Barbarian sparked such a bidding war that Deadline reported Jordan Peele fired his managers after Universal and Peele's Monkeypaw Productions failed to secure the film. The script ultimately sold to New Line for a whopping $38 million. Cut to years later, the finished product is here. Its creepy trailer went viral upon debut and its aggressive marketing campaign turned it into the horror movie of the moment.
Does it live up to the hype? It does and then some; the film exceeded my already lofty expectations. It's a stunningly confident sophomore effort from Cregger, the latest in a line of comedians-turned-horror-maestros.
The premise is chilling: When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, 2:17 a.m., a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance. The movie opens with the kids already missing. A child narrator prefaces the story, immediately setting the tone of a creepy campfire tale. The rest of the movie unfolds from the perspective of several different characters, each getting their own chapter.
Julia Garner in Weapons. (Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection)The movie had been described as a "horror epic" in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, and that billing sets the stage well for what it is in terms of its form, without giving too much away. Its structure allows for Cregger to show off his skills as a director, constantly building up suspense and ratcheting up tension only to pull the rug out and reset, just as the audience is catching their breath. It's masterful and assured work; he's got the audience in the palm of his hands.
AdvertisementAdvertisementEvery jump scare in this movie made me leap out of my seat, a rare feat for a seasoned genre vet, but the biggest surprise is how funny it is, too, with all the laughs stemming naturally out of the horrors. To say this film has a crowd-pleasing final act is an understatement - the audience I saw it with was hooting and hollering, myself included.
In addition to delivering as a purely satisfying and entertaining horror movie, it's also got a lot of subtext to parse. The haunting imagery, the missing children and the focus on a community's varying responses to the tragedy can't help but evoke school shootings, and there's a single dreamlike image in the film that makes it clear that these parallels are intentional.
Cary Christopher in Weapons. (Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection)Maybe it's because I'm a recent father of an almost two-year-old, but I found it surprisingly emotionally affecting by the end, when it becomes a different kind of tragic and haunting story. It feels like a movie that's channeling modern anxieties through horror the old-fashioned way and eschewing the more modern way of letting the subtext become the text. Barbarian's commentary on the #MeToo movement felt hard to miss, for example, but someone could watch Weapons, solely focus on the horror elements, and maybe never even pick up on the real-life horror it mirrors.I haven't stopped thinking about Weapons since the credits rolled and I can't wait to catch it again.
AdvertisementAdvertisementWhat other critics are saying: It's got a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. Variety's Peter Debruge nails it, writing "Cregger has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun." Mark Kennedy at the Associated Press says, "it will, at the very least, make you feel a little dread when the clock hits