“A lot of people die in a lot of really weird ways in this story.”
An unseen child makes this chilling promise in the latest trailer for “Weapons,” Zach Cregger’s horror epic set to hit theaters Aug. 8. You can watch the trailer yourself in the video below.
“Weapons” follows an eclectic group of characters in the wake of tragedy — one night, an entire classroom of schoolchildren wake up at 2:17 a.m. and run off into the night. The film’s first trailer and poster swears “they never came back.”
Julia Garner stars as Justine Gandy, the teacher of the disappeared children’s class. A post on the film’s tie-in site, maybrookmissing.com, reveals that Ms. Gandy only recently began teaching the class following “an incident at her previous school.” Other cast members include Josh Brolin as bereaved parent Archer Graff, Alden Ehrenreich as police officer Paul and Benedict Wong as school principal Andrew.
Little had been revealed about the plot of “Weapons” beyond its initial premise, and this trailer is no different. The footage opens as Ms. Gandy addresses a crowd of angry parents and community members begging for answers. Amidst a crowd of screaming parents, Ms. Gandy simply responds only by stating, “I love those kids.”
From there, the trailer becomes more opaque, flashing quickly through a variety of isolated moments. As Gandy and Graff search for answers, a low tone begins pulsing in the background. A demonic voice begins to ask in the background, “Are you watching?” The voice raises the question one last time as an unseen person’s hand ominously rings a bell. The trailer cuts to black.
Like the initial trailer, this new look at “Weapons” presents a series of disturbing images, often shown without context. Children run into the night with their arms held downward at a strange angle. A man stabs himself in the face repeatedly with a fork. A child slowly steps across a line covered in salt, with two unmoving adults standing on the other side. Wong, eyes bulging, runs with a face covered in blood.
The trailer released following a livestream on Warner Bros.’ YouTube page this morning, titled simply “Are you watching?” The stream began by showing a still image, crackling with static, of a child running into the night. A pensive composition played in the background — likely the film’s score composed by Cregger, Ryan Holladay and Hays Holladay. The livestream cut to eerie footage of two figures sitting, unmoving, at a table as a shadowy young girl feeds them. A timer counted down from 17:03 to 2:17 — the time in the film when the children ran into the night. Cregger then appeared on-screen to present the trailer.
Hot off the heels of 2022’s “Barbarian,” Cregger both writes and directs his much-anticipated follow-up. The filmmaker describes “Weapons” as a horror epic inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia.” The PTA comparison may sound lofty for a director’s second horror feature, but it hints at a sense of scale and interconnected narratives certainly hinted at by “Weapons’” marketing.
“Weapons” continues to be one of the year’s most highly anticipated films — a result of both the disturbing marketing campaign and early buzz on Cregger’s screenplay. The script bolstered significant attention in a bidding war, with New Line Cinema winning out. The studio reportedly purchased the script for $38 million. Cregger received a $10 million package and final cut on the film.
“Weapons” releases in theaters Aug. 8.
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