Images of weapons offer a mysterious preview of Zach Cregger’s upcoming horror film. The comedian and actor first gained notoriety in 2022 when he wrote and directed Barbarian, a box office hit that generated over $45 million on a modest $4 million budget and garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics for its deft use of horror clichés and surprising turns. Weapons, Cregger’s follow-up, experienced a significant increase in budget to $38 million due to fierce bidding among multiple studios.
The first glimpse of Cregger’s upcoming horror movie has already been made public. New Cine Cinema posted five first-look pictures from Weapons on X, formerly Twitter. A digital clock that reads 2:17, a small league baseball team, and a child sprinting across a street at night are among the mysterious moments from the movie that are depicted in the pictures. Every picture on X included the statement, “And they never came back…”
The Significance of the Weapons Images in the Film
Even though the pictures appear to be entirely obscure, they do provide some plot-related information. According to the Weapons footage shown at CinemaCon 2025, the digital clock reads 2:17 a.m., which is the exact moment when 17 kids in the tiny village of Maybrook wake up, get out of bed, go downstairs, venture into the dark, and never return. One of the kids may be seen sprinting across the street at night in another picture. Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, and Austin Abrams are among the cast members of the movie, despite not being visible in the opening shots.
Along with the five first-look photos, Weapons also debuted an in-universe website called Maybrook News (www.maybrookmissing.com), which includes a news report about the 17 kids who vanished from the made-up Florida community. Additionally, the website includes a news article headlined “Underground Prison Discovered in Rental Home,” which alludes to Barbarian’s narrative and raises the possibility that Cregger’s two horror films are set in the same universe. Weapons has been characterised as an epic mosaic of interconnected tales, some of which deal with religious abuse, witchcraft, blood rituals, generational pain, and police corruption.
Our Interpretation of the Weapons Pictures
Similar to his debut horror picture Barbarian, Zach Cregger is creating a creepy and unpredictable environment, which is hinted at by the enigmatic first-look photos from Weapons. “Intriguing and unpredictable, with a nice helping of batshit insane,” said Richard Brener, the head of New Line Cinema, at CinemaCon. The writer-director also referred to the picture as “a movie that unravels and reinvents itself as it goes.” The Weapons photos provide just enough to pique viewers’ interest without giving away too much, thanks to their eerie imagery and sinister slogan.
