Best Movies of 2025, #4: Weapons

I don’t usually see horror movies, but the trailer for this was so good that I couldn’t resist and I was very happy with what I got.  All the children but one from a third-grade class run out of their homes at 2:17 am, and still haven’t been seen again a month later, when most of the action takes place.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Tease That You’re Not Going to Solve the Mystery

We begin the movie from the teacher’s perspective. Everybody blames her, but she has no idea what’s going on, and she’s snapping under the pressure. Here’s one reason why this section works: Hollywood movies have gotten artier in recent years, and you almost believe they won’t ever explain what happened to the kids. You’re watching it and thinking, “Is this ‘The Leftovers’? Are we never going to know?” (After all, the poster flat-out lies and says “They never came back.”) Keeping that possibility open just makes it all the more gratifying when everything does fall into place, and all mysteries are gradually revealed. (It’s okay for posters to lie.)

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Wring Out the Juice

You’ve got a juicy idea for a movie, but what’s your in-point? As it turns out, there is one character who knows exactly what’s going on: The boy who didn’t run away. He was forced by a witch to help kidnap all the missing kids and they’re in his basement.

This poor kid is a very interesting character. He’s so interesting, that the natural tendency would be to focus the whole movie around him. But the brilliance of the movie is to give us several other POV characters first (starting with the teacher, then an obsessed parent, then a cop, then a criminal, etc.) only getting to the boy well into the second half.

This mystery is so juicy that many characters have interesting reactions, not just the boy (who ultimately saves the day). It would be a shame to deny us the perspectives of those who don’t know what’s going on, or give the truth away too quickly.

Rulebook Casefile: Have Them Do Something Clever (Even Awful Things)

The boy has been ordered by the witch to bring home an object from each classmate so she can take control of them all. We see him sitting at his desk scanning the other desks, focusing in on the objects some of his classmates have …but they don’t all have an object. We don’t support what he’s doing, but now we’re worried he won’t succeed. Then he sees it: Every kid has decorated a piece of art to go on their cubby. He just has to remove all of those. We’re relieved: He’s solved his problem cleverly. (And now all of the kids are literally cursed.)