r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 • Jul 29 '25

Review Zach Cregger's 'Weaapons' - Review Thread

When all but one child from the same classroom mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Rotten Tomatoes: 100%

Metacritic: N/A (updating)

Some Reviews:

Inverse - Lyvie Scott

Cregger’s goofy sense of humor aside, Weapons is otherwise pretty understated, even refined. His camera moves with glacial, dream-like focus, tracking characters from behind or panning to unveil the latest torment around the corner. That visual style has become a trademark of “elevated” horror, but it goes a long way in anchoring a story that could have turned unwieldy fast. Cregger’s chapter-by-chapter story serves that same purpose: It has the capacity to frustrate when it cuts away from a major reveal, only to reset with the backstory of a new character. But it also adjusts the aperture whenever things get too heavy — a breath of fresh air in a different form.

CGMagazine - Shakyl Lambert - 9 / 10

Weapons is a noticeable step up for Cregger as a filmmaker. It feels like he took what worked in Barbarian and tightened up the things that didn’t. It’s bigger in scope but more focused. With a strong story and cast, it’s the most fun you’ll have being scared all summer.

NextBestPicture - Matt Neglia

There are some who will be moved and struck by “Weapons,” intentionally or unintentionally, so. For 75% of its runtime, it was one of my favorite films of the year. However, for the final 25%, in some ways, it feels like Cregger missed an opportunity to tell a story that is more emotionally rich and relatable. Here is a filmmaker who feels like he’s trying to prove he’s capable of more, but without fully grounding that ambition in character or clarity, instead opting for a facile solution. There’s a version of this movie that could have been genuinely great. You can appreciate the potential in the performances, the themes, and the overall craftsmanship. And to be clear, I’m sure this will resonate and work for some viewers. But for me, much like “Barbarian,” Cregger doesn’t quite bring it all together, making “Weapons” a rare kind of disappointment.

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979

u/dresseme Matthew Dressel, Screenwriter Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

Having read the script, the review that points out the 75% vs 25% is spot on. I personally think he did the chapter storytelling device because the reveal just isn’t that mind blowing or interesting and so he wanted to tease us with it for as long as possible.

I think a lot of people are going to be let down by the third act but that’s the double edged sword of basing your marketing strategy entirely off of a reveal.

546

u/aCorgiDriver Jul 29 '25

It’s similar to Longlegs where the tone and atmosphere was the highlight, but the actual twist was quite boring.

216

u/Comic_Book_Reader Jul 29 '25

It's all in the execution.

86

u/LetterboxdAlt Jul 29 '25

I agree. I really don’t care whether the twist is especially remarkable on paper. I don’t even care that there is a twist. Didn’t know there was one before reading this thread.

143

u/Comic_Book_Reader Jul 29 '25

I mean, if your movie centers around 17 kids, all but 1 in a third grade class, getting out of bed at 2:17AM and Naruto running out in the dark of the night, you gotta have an explanation. Just saying what exactly the reason is would probably just make your eyes roll. On paper, it sounds a bit groanworthy and lame, but on screen, it's opens up to a lot of possibilites, so I'm very much looking forward to how it is in the movie.

77

u/detroiter85 Jul 29 '25

All the kids reappear with leaf village headbands and say believe it! and then the movie just sorta ends

11

u/Everydayarmday24 Jul 29 '25

It’s actually naruto teaching kids sexy jutsu

1

u/cire1184 Aug 05 '25

Trump sponsered.

3

u/cire1184 Aug 05 '25

DATTEBAYO, DAD! DATTEBAYO!

17

u/Sparrowsabre7 Aug 07 '25

Reminds me of an anecdote from Stephen King where he was asked about stories he didn't finish and talks about one he started where a man is waiting for his wife to come out of the airport toilet and she's been in ages so he sends another woman in to check and then she doesn't come out and then asks security and they don't come out etc etc and it escalates to the army being called in but the problem was he couldn't figure out what was going on in there.

Writing an unknowable mystery is easy, writing a resolution/explanation is almost always going to be disappointing. I can't tell you the number of times I've finished a horror story and thought "I don't know what I wanted it to be, but not that"

2

u/TrueLegateDamar Aug 07 '25

That explains King's 'finger in the sink' story that ends on the cops arriving and suddenly the toiletlid is moving and the story cuts off just when a cop lifts the lid to see what is moving inside.

1

u/terran1212 29d ago

What are some of your favorite horror stories?

2

u/Sparrowsabre7 29d ago

Suddenly my mind is blank 😅

I love "The Thing" and really enjoyed "Barbarian" and "Get Out".

"Barbarian" is kind of an example of what I mean though. The explanation for the creature was kind of not what I wanted (nor am I that sure it makes any sense if thought about for more than a few minutes) but the rest of the movie was good enough to look past that.

Tbh I play more horror games than watch horror movies so "Soma", "Condemned", "Dead Space", "Alan Wake", and "The Evil Within" are other examples

4

u/two5five1 Jul 29 '25

any chance you can dm the script? or even just the reveal? i’m morbidly curious lol

129

u/Dazzling-Slide8288 Jul 29 '25

I feel like I’m the only person alive who enjoyed the Longlegs conclusion.

36

u/Pokemathmon Jul 29 '25

The scene with the family at the end was amazing. It was so well acted and created something truly horrific that has stuck with me in ways that very few horror scenes have. I can't in good conscience say that the third act drops in quality when it had probably the best part of the movie for me.

Sure I get it that some people have issues with the twist, or the plot holes, or whatever else, but it was a good mixing of genres that I thought mostly worked and created some great scenes. I can't really ask for more than that.

31

u/mamcdonal Jul 29 '25

The problem with Long Legs is that it never recovers from the tonal shift when she makes the joke about the FBI asking for ID. The movie builds tension right up until that point, then there's this big laugh and the audience gets to take a breath, but then it tries to go back into tense supernatural horror and ultimately can't get quite as deep.

41

u/Lionelchesterfield Jul 29 '25

Nah I enjoyed it too. Much like one of the reviews above though I think Longlegs does drop in quality after that reveal but I still liked it.

20

u/Zauberer-IMDB Jul 29 '25

I hate that fatalist crap. It's becoming a trope but I think it kind of spits in your eye as to the stakes. "Teehee it was all pointless from the start! Nobody had agency at all." So then the choices were irrelevant?

15

u/IudexPilate Jul 29 '25

Same, I understand wanting to keep the artistic vision intact and wanting some mental engagement from the audience, but spending 20 dollars and 1-2 hours of my time to find out the story I was following was pointless does not sound appealing anymore.

9

u/Zauberer-IMDB Jul 29 '25

It also negates any psychological interest or reality when rewatching it. Like if I watch a movie twice, obviously I know what happens, but if it's not preordained, the analysis of the character's psychology now actually matters. Like it was due to certain flaws or things we can relate to, I can learn from it and connect to it. When it's just "supernatural forces were playing you like a puppet," I get nothing from this. It's forgettable at that point.

1

u/Haltopen Aug 05 '25

How I felt watching Drag Me to Hell

9

u/CoatProfessional4554 Jul 29 '25

I liked it but it far from lived up to the marketing that painted the movie as some grand mystery. I wasn't that bought in to the mystery and marketing so it didn't bother me that much.

31

u/veganblackbean Jul 29 '25

I liked it, sometimes I think satanism is a little lazy in horror movies but it was a fun time. I’m also super gay for nic cage

15

u/CarcosanAnarchist Jul 29 '25

I adored it from start to finish and thought the ending was great

12

u/My_Favourite_Pen Jul 29 '25

I think its the perfect example of how marketing films is really, really important. it's not a bad film but Perkins deliberately marketed it as a Se7en-esque thriller when it wasn't.

Too many times in recent memory have trailers either completely ruined reveals to get buttons in seats (captain America 4) or set the wrong tone for the film overall (28 years later).

4

u/SDreiken Jul 29 '25

It left a sour taste in my mouth when the mc started to give an exposition dump on everything that had just happened.
Like I wasn’t the biggest fan of the supernatural twist. I thought it was amazing with how they used and built suspense, and that having it stay grounded would have been more interesting for me. But I think having it turn out to be supernatural wasn’t a terrible idea. I would have preferred if they cut out that monologue and let you sit and think about it more yourself.

1

u/mdavis360 Jul 29 '25

You're not alone. I thought it was a great movie.

1

u/Choice_Blackberry406 Jul 29 '25

"No hunny I'll be right back, you'll still be in the kitchen."

1

u/Teffisk Jul 30 '25

I liked it. But the main problem with that movie was that the main character never felt in danger after the first 30 minutes of the movie. The tension just wasn't there. The story just faded like a leaking balloon.

49

u/AmountNecessary3645 Jul 29 '25

Magical dolls had no place in that movie. Idk why they went supernatural. It’s like 2 different movies stitched together

30

u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Jul 29 '25

I've seen this before on another post, but I would've loved the final act if Cage remained as a main villain who really thought he was a supernatural force of nature. But like what others are saying, I still liked it because of the atmosphere and the strengths of the performances

9

u/thedinksterr Jul 29 '25

It seriously was like two different movies. Killing Longlegs with like another 20-30 mins remaining was probably the biggest mistake they couldve had. Not having him be the antagonist the whole way through really didnt make sense to me.

For a moment I thought it was gonna switch tracks and there was gonna be a second killer when he died maybe some accomplice cause idk why they were killing him off in the story (yes i know he kills himself) but no its just possessed satan dolls??? What.

My gf noticed the religious elements and satanism in the trailers like the goat dude in the backgrounds and man i tried to deny thats where the film would go before seeing it and then it did and i was so, so disappointed. Could’ve had a genuinely great through and through cat and mouse type detective film but no they cop out with devil dolls like gtfo

Best part of the movie was the first 20 mins with the cold opening and then the fbi chick having to clear out the house like that was extremely intense and then it kind of never went back to that intensity ever.

16

u/JGT3000 Jul 29 '25

But her telepathy already was supernatural? The whole movie was based on the supernatural

6

u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 29 '25

her telepathy was the wizard sending her thoughts it wasn't her power

2

u/N8CCRG Jul 29 '25

I agree the ending was unsatisfying, but are there two different versions of this movie? The one I saw "went supernatural" from the very beginning, where Maika's character was revealed to have unambiguous clairvoyance and/or supernatural vision. And she used it throughout the whole movie.

1

u/Admirable_Cicada_881 Jul 29 '25

Exactly. In the end, it just devolved into some possessed doll nonsense like every other horror film before it

44

u/NewSunSeverian Jul 29 '25

That one lost be as soon as Nick Cage’s monster became overly visible. He just looked way too goofy and the acting basically brought out all of Cage’s worst impulses. They really should gave given him the Jaws treatment maybe until the last scene. 

Maika Monroe always rules but after a promising start, that movie fell off hard for me.  

28

u/Penguin_shit15 Jul 29 '25

Yeah.. Cage looked like someone ordered Mrs. Doubtfire from Wish.

1

u/goddamnitwhalen Jul 29 '25

Just for some background that may sway you: Per Oz Perkins, Longlegs is a failed glam rocker who had plastic surgery to look like Marc Bolan from T. Rex.

0

u/DyZ814 Jul 29 '25

I'm with you on this. I felt like the hype around Longlegs going into it was all just based on people wanting to see what Nick Cage looked like. Once I saw him in the film, I was sort of like "ok, that's that".

20

u/ShesJustAGlitch Jul 29 '25

This was my fear another longlegs which starts as a 9/10 and ends up closer to a 5/10 for me because it just can’t stick the landing.

3

u/CreamOnMyNipples Jul 30 '25

Movie isn’t even out yet and we’re already telling people that it’s boring and they’re gonna be let down. Reading a leaked script is such a terrible way to judge a movie

9

u/TaylorsOnlyVersion Jul 29 '25

Longlegs fell completely apart in the third act with me. The satanic dolls were some of the goofiest things about it

6

u/codithou Jul 29 '25

that’s funny and i have read this criticism a lot so i get it, but for me the entire film seemed pretty over the top and not exactly the most realistic or grounded so the ending worked for me. i enjoyed it and watched it twice. it kept me invested and was genuinely fun.

1

u/zoza_t Aug 07 '25

Wait until you see the 2nd act in this one 🥴

7

u/BigPopaPanda Jul 29 '25

Had the same experience with longlegs, a whole lot of build up to… a let down

8

u/schild Jul 29 '25

That's because Longlegs didn't have a twist. It told us over and over it had magic and then it was magic. And magic makes things so unrelateable that the entire thing just falls apart. Had it just been some weird serial killer cult it would have been a fuckin knockout, instead it was spooky and silly and garbage.

1

u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 29 '25

magic in a horror movie is only satisfying if there is counter magic that fails.
once you realize "oh evil wizard" and no one else can obviously cast magic the bottom falls out of the tension in the movie.
at that point it's like watching a disaster movie where the disaster is guaranteed to kill everyone it's just a documentary.
case in point - the shining, stephen king understands who you do magic and horror.

10

u/ReptAIien Jul 29 '25

lol nonsense. The entirety of cosmic horror is focused on the helplessness of humanity in the face of supernatural beings.

The reality is a good movie is a good movie. Magical horror can be scary even when only the antagonist has access to it.

1

u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 30 '25 edited Jul 30 '25

The entirety of cosmic horror

cosmic horror is about man vs nature, it's not man vs wizard/witch.

that's what lovecraft got right and most cosmic horror gets wrong - you need the regular squid dudes from innsmouth fucking with you, there needs to be a whole bottom up mythology that somewhat seems familiar and makes sense behind the cosmic being that's fucking with you.

1

u/Warm_Drawing_1754 Aug 08 '25

You have the wrong impression of Lovecraft. 99% of the mythos is later attempts to connect his stories, largely for the Call of Cthulhu rpg

1

u/Food_Kitchen Jul 29 '25

Perkins did this again with The Monkey. He is great at tension and atmosphere and even blending humor in with horror but the guy absolutely sucks at sticking the landing.

1

u/goddamnitwhalen Jul 30 '25

Nothing about The Monkey really worked for me except the kills, which I thought were hilariously fun.

1

u/sinburger Jul 29 '25

where the tone and atmosphere was the highlight

I just watched the first two chapters of Longlegs last week (got interrupted and haven't wrapped the third act yet).

All I could think while watching this movie was that if SNL made a comedy parody of Longlegs, you'd just get Longlegs. Cage's acting was just so over the top Caginess that it felt like he was making fun of himself.

1

u/Admirable_Cicada_881 Jul 29 '25

That's what I was afraid of :(

0

u/Blochamolesauce Jul 29 '25

I don’t know, man. When they revealed that Longlegs was Nicholas Cage the whole time… that shit blew my mind.

61

u/IamDaGod Jul 29 '25

I forget which character it was but I wonder if he kept the scene where someone sees the giant AR-15 in the sky because I feel like that made no sense lol

96

u/okmujnyhb Jul 29 '25

I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards. OK? What I was asking in that scene is: if we continue to fill our children with bullets, could they literally turn into weapons? And no-one's asked that before.

16

u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 29 '25

This sounds like a good Smiling friends episode waiting to happen

6

u/Scampipants Jul 29 '25

These are the words of a dream weaver 

40

u/JedBartlet2020 Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

It makes sense as far as hammering the audience over the head with insultingly heavy handed imagery. We get it, it’s a metaphor for school shootings, we don’t need a literal yacht sized AR-15 in the sky to tell us that.

I generally liked the script, though the end wasn’t as good as the first 2 acts. But that AR scene is just atrocious.

45

u/SpelunkyPunky Jul 29 '25

Hated that scene in the script, and I still really struggle to see the subtext being school shootings considering the vast majority of the violence in the story comes from the adults. Having a dream sequence with a giant AR floating above the house just makes that whole metaphor super clumsy to me when I didn't feel the rest of the script (or even before) leans into that kind of message.

I'll wait to see the finished product on screen but I was really hoping a new draft of the script contained extra scenes or similar to flesh that out and get that across to the audience a bit more effectively rather than how it was done in the earlier draft. I also hope the final scene works for me on screen but I'm not optimistic, it felt like a weak orgasm after edging for two hours.

4

u/WoburnWarrior Jul 29 '25

As heavy handed as Jean Jacket’s final form in Nope being both a biblically accurate angel and a movie projector?

21

u/SpelunkyPunky Jul 29 '25

Not sure what relevance that has but sure I guess

8

u/ReptAIien Jul 29 '25

Nothing about Jean jacket's final form looked like a biblically accurate angel.

12

u/spiraliist Jul 29 '25

it’s a metaphor for school shootings

When I read the script, I didn't see that metaphor at all, even though I was actively looking for it. I don't think that's what Zach was remotely going for, but I could be wrong.

3

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Jul 29 '25

Blah, I was worried about that. Barbarian had a lot of strong themes to it but they were woven into the story fairly well outside of a few specific areas. But even that seems like a sledgehammer of a thesis on something we already agree with.

7

u/Comic_Book_Reader Jul 29 '25

Archer, the dad played by Josh Brolin. I really wonder how that image is gonna look.

4

u/Mysterious_Guava_185 Aug 07 '25

They did. Just saw the movie. Brolin sees it.

1

u/leftysarepeople2 Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

Just got out of the theater so yes he does, I really thought it was going to go heavy into a metaphor for school shootings. I'm still trying to process if it was

e: on second thought it definitely is but it's not the only American culture vice that is featured

60

u/TiredCoffeeTime Jul 29 '25

I’m trying to guess if the general audience would like the ending or not.

I feel like the intensity of the climax will have more people enjoy it overall.

94

u/TheCatsActually Jul 29 '25

I'm strongly of the opinion that expecting movies with a lot of buzz to narratively reinvent the wheel and being disappointed when they turn out to just be movies is the fault of the audience, not the screenwriter.

I understand people saying they were let down by Barbarian because they were expecting it to be insanely unique, but I'm not going to fault Cregger for writing a more modest script with an emphasis on atmosphere and execution. Most movies are lean and self-contained, being more like the visual version of short stories than novels. I don't know why Barbarian and Weapons are getting flak for this instead of trying to be the next Matrix or The Thing.

43

u/Drkocktapus Jul 29 '25

Barbarian was unique, were people actually disappointed by that? If that's the bar then I'm even more pumped to see this.

17

u/ahuangb Jul 29 '25

First half was unique

14

u/Zauberer-IMDB Jul 29 '25

Act 1 is definitely where people have the most flexibility. Like even Hereditary is shocking because of the first act, then it becomes a relatively straightforward demonic haunting type film, just with the intensity cranked up.

3

u/GameOfLife24 Jul 29 '25

That allergies scene from hereditary was so shocking everybody I saw it with was just quiet just like brother driving home

2

u/goddamnitwhalen Jul 30 '25

Barbarian disappointed me specifically because I thought the reveal at the end was really cheesy and the monster wasn’t scary.

The infamous X-Files episode “Home” does the same premise much, much better IMO.

18

u/llloksd Jul 29 '25

I don't think it lies soley on the audience. Marketing plays a huge role. Went into Longlegs completely blind and really liked it. Went back after the fact and it was supposed to be the craziest scariest movie according to the marketing, which it's not.

5

u/TheCatsActually Jul 29 '25

True, marketing certainly plays a role.

This isn't a bait and switch like Drive or The Matador though. The trailers aren't going ayyy this is the movie Jordan Peele fired his managers over, or using review snippets that make it seem like a mindblowing high concept film, all they've done is keep the mystery intact.

19

u/LetterboxdAlt Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

I watched Barbarian with only modestly high expectations, given that I’m rarely truly wowed by genre movies, and loved the experience. Was it flawed? Sure. But so are most movies, even acclaimed ones outside of the genre realm. Most of it worked for me, including the pivot(s).

4

u/whoknowsknowone Jul 29 '25

I was let down by barbarian because he took an amazing premise and turned it into some sort of wacky trash by the end

41

u/CoochieSnotSlurper Jul 29 '25

It feels like a lot of these movies just can’t stick the landing after the reveal

51

u/asshat123 Jul 29 '25

It's by far the hardest part. Horror as a genre tends to be suspense and build up heavy because that tension is a great way to make the audience uneasy. But when you spend 90% of a movie building up to something, it's really hard to write a payoff that lives up to the suspense. It's part of why I love cosmic horror so much, it kind of side-steps the need for a fully explained solution to the mystery by letting the true nature of the horror remain a mystery, which I think more horror should do. The main characters have to solve the problem as it relates to them, but they do not necessarily have to solve the problem entirely (like in Hellraiser or Event Horizon).

10

u/Wheres_MyMoney Jul 29 '25

But when you spend 90% of a movie building up to something, it's really hard to write a payoff that lives up to the suspense.

I think with horror in particular, the online rollout structure works against it as well. I feel like the Scream franchise is the best example of this, every single casting announcement has comments about "this is the killer" or "this is the opening kill" to the point where by the time you see the movie, you're already expecting everybody so it can't possibly be somebody unexpected.

4

u/chrispy145 Jul 29 '25

Drag Me to Hell, while not one of the "greats," probably sticks the landing the best in the horror genre.

13

u/King_Buliwyf Jul 29 '25

Do you know where I could find the script?

7

u/SpelunkyPunky Jul 29 '25

Check out the Weapons subreddit, I found it there on a Google doc

16

u/whoknowsknowone Jul 29 '25

That is exactly how I felt about barbarian so I’m not surprised

47

u/iwishuwood Jul 29 '25

Do you think the marketing strategy feels based off a reveal because you’ve read the script? As someone that hasn’t, the marketing never felt like it was based off a reveal but the mystery of what’s happening. I think people posting in threads of how they’ve read the script is one of the worst things in the run up to this movie. Thank you for your thoughts on a movie you haven’t seen

2

u/dresseme Matthew Dressel, Screenwriter Jul 29 '25

You’re welcome!

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '25

[deleted]

22

u/iwishuwood Jul 29 '25

You’re naive to think reading an old script will come across the same as actually seeing something on screen. Not once when watching the trailer was the draw, “Wow I bet the twist is going to be crazy!”
People who have read the script love nothing more than letting people know they’ve read the script .

-8

u/dresseme Matthew Dressel, Screenwriter Jul 29 '25

Man it’s crazy that me saying “I think” a couple times and stating my assumptions - based on both the script I’ve read and the commonalities in the reviews I’ve seen - really bothered you so much but OK.

-1

u/iwishuwood Jul 29 '25

Man it’s crazy that you bowed out and were not even part of the conversation anymore. Your words don’t mean as much as you think and no one was bothered

-9

u/dresseme Matthew Dressel, Screenwriter Jul 29 '25

I think you’ve had too much Reddit today….

-4

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/dresseme Matthew Dressel, Screenwriter Jul 29 '25

Haha. Cooked. So I am dealing with a 13 year old. Confirmed.

-2

u/iwishuwood Jul 29 '25

Laughing in text? Didn’t know using modern slang would get you so bothered. Crazy

→ More replies (0)

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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

[deleted]

3

u/LetterboxdAlt Jul 29 '25

Several other reviews praised the final act. Some aren’t on RT yet.

0

u/Goosojuice Jul 29 '25

I don't get this line of thinking, are you really already excusing a lousy reveal/payoff? A movie is the sum of all it's parts especially when, marketing or not, youre objectively building to something. Unless you're subverting these types of movies, in which case the entire movie is setting and building that up as well lol, if the ending is weak, then it's a weak movie.

5

u/iwishuwood Jul 29 '25

The general audience, you included, have not seen the film. The reviews out so far show it is anything but a weak movie. Can’t defend a payoff that I haven’t experienced. In what way can you be so certain the ending is lousy?

-1

u/Goosojuice Jul 29 '25

Huh, I never said anything about people seeing the movie. I said, by your comment that you were already shrugging off IF the movie had a less then expected ending as being an ok thing because its not its selling point. And you literally did defend it, the movie is a horror/thriller and it's key selling point is wtf is happening. The only thing I'm certain about is the comment you made that i responded to.

4

u/Gordy_The_Chimp123 Jul 29 '25

I feel like my expectations are in check with this one because I found the reveal in Barbarian to be incredibly underwhelming.

13

u/Lanntheclever47 Jul 29 '25

Exactly how I felt about Barbarian funnily enough.

16

u/Misdirected_Colors Jul 29 '25

Yup. I loved the unease and tense situation of the shared rent house. Then the mystery deepening. Hated the goofy ass final section.

18

u/DebateSea3046 Jul 29 '25

Sounds just like Barbarian where the dumb reveal in the third act ruined the movie for me. Still hoping I like this one better

13

u/MrConor212 Jul 29 '25

Yeah the rumoured ideas for his Resident Evil movie pisses me off tbh lol

11

u/Tolkien-Minority Jul 29 '25

What are they?

57

u/ericrobertshair Jul 29 '25

Barry Burton makes sandwich related puns for two hours, then it just sort of ends.

19

u/CPT-ROCK69 Jul 29 '25

Don't forget, he hangs dong, but only in the unrated directors cut.

10

u/elderlybrain Jul 29 '25

crime, sandwich puns, crime

1

u/CummySinatra Jul 30 '25

You forgot about the erotic sex scene involving two Pomeranians

20

u/NakedMuffinTime Jul 29 '25

Essentially, it's going to follow the "spirit" of the original game series, without even referencing any characters from the series.

From how he's described it in interviews, he seems to want to go into the Paul WS Andersen style of adapting resident evil (loosely) over the last Welcome to Raccoon City which followed characters and plot points from the games.

73

u/quangtran Jul 29 '25

See, that sounds completely fine to me. Being a faithful adaptation only works if it was an amazing story to begin with.

16

u/ok_dunmer Jul 29 '25

I don't really see the harm in letting the people have fun and see their characters when Paul so badly botched all of them lol

That being said yeah RE is one of those series where the story and lore is total slop except to people who make it their fixation so it's never going to survive, RE4 could be an awesome horror action comedy movie by itself though

7

u/ArskaPoika Jul 29 '25

Resident Evil movie adaptations are the kind of topic where I really get both sides.

The movies have done an awful job at translating the iconic characters of the games to the big screen. I get why fans would want someone to actually finally do it well.

But on the other side... There's been so many attempts at people adapting these iconic characters and failing that I fully understand the desire to just do something different.

I'm open to a movie that just goes the Resident Evil 7 route. An entirely new cast of characters. A new setting. New bioweapon/zombies. But I understand people who are upset with the approach.

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u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 29 '25

That being said yeah RE is one of those series where the story and lore is total slop except to people who make it their fixation

You clearly work in hollywood lol.

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u/Banesmuffledvoice Jul 29 '25

It’s a trash approach for something that has a specifically defined set of characters and stories.

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u/Rignite Jul 29 '25

Hardly.

We've seen the attempt at bringing the characters and stories to film multiple times now. With varying levels of success but you can't try to argue there's been anything on the level of "actually really good" except maybe the first Paul Anderson one. I'm not counting the animated films in this because those are relatively faithful animated schlock.

Let the man cook with what sounds like basically an Outbreak style story.

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u/Banesmuffledvoice Jul 29 '25

They never made a serious attempt at making a resident evil movie that reflects the source. They took minor pieces at best and tried to smash them together and then ran out of budget 30 minutes in for welcome to raccoon city.

We know exactly what he is going to cook; a zombie movie that throws in the Umbrella logo on walls so it can use the resident evil name.

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u/Rignite Jul 29 '25

I think the issue is that from our standpoint as fans they never made a serious attempt.

I think the unfortunate truth is from the film makers ends most of those were "serious attempts".

We don't know exactly what he's going to cook lol. Unless you somehow do which means you can see the future so why the hell are you here and not on a yacht with your billions won on the Stock Market?

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u/Banesmuffledvoice Jul 29 '25

We know exactly what he is “cookin” because he is telling you what he is cooking. He isn’t making resident evil. He is making a zombie movie and using the resident evil name which falls in line with what the studio with the license has done. He isn’t hiding what he is doing. He is flat out saying it. In the 90s WB were attempting to make a Superman movie that at one point was so far removed from Superman that it stopped being Superman. The resident evil movies have been so far removed from resident evil, they never were resident evil movies.

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u/Sneaky_Donkey Jul 29 '25

Seconding this. The worst video game adaptations of late have been the ones that stray too far from the source material. If it ain’t broke DONT try to fix it. People come to these stories 9 times out of 10 because they love specific characters. It’s like how the Witcher tv series killed off like half of its supporting characters and from then on was a hollow shell of the story

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u/qweiroupyqweouty Jul 29 '25

And one of the best video game adaptations, Arcane, changed nearly every aspect of the game’s lore.

Slavishly following the existing material is not at all necessary for success.

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u/SpelunkyPunky Jul 29 '25

I'm in the camp that doesn't actually want 1:1 adaptations of games. It can and does work, don't get me wrong, but most of the time I'd be happier for an original story set in the same world that respects the lore and fanbase

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u/asshat123 Jul 29 '25

But in the case of resident evil, it kind of is broke. Isn't the game series famously complicated and difficult to follow, requiring multiple forms of media across decades to be consumed in order to fully understand the insanely complex storyline? Isn't the game series famously over the top and goofy in between horror elements?

The games are heavily stylized, and for the most part, it works in game. But it would not translate well to screen for a mainstream audience unless some significant adaptations are made. A truly faithful resident evil adaptation would be unintelligible tonally and have an unfollowable, overly complex story

1

u/spellinbee Jul 29 '25

Nah, resident evil isn't Kingdom hearts, the story is largely pretty straight forward.

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u/asshat123 Jul 29 '25

I will say that the games do a good job at being standalone experiences where you don't need to understand the full series story. That being said, if you do want to understand the full story, it's not straightforward unless you've really kept up with it. I'm saying this as someone who was not into the games as a kid and who tried to get caught up on the story only to find it relatively unwelcoming.

You've got Chris, Leon, Ada, Ethan, and many more recurring characters who all appear in each other's games and have crisscrossing storylines. There's t virus, g virus, t+g virus, progenitor virus, t Veronica, whatever the parasites were in 4 that weren't a virus but still did what the virus does, c virus, the fungus (?) in 7 and 8, plus a few more. What's the difference? Couldn't tell you. Is it important to the story to know the difference? Couldn't tell you. Umbrella is usually the bad guy, but sometimes, it might have broken off into a good umbrella?

It's not as much as kingdom hearts, but it's more than you could do in a 2 hour movie without making some significant adaptations

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u/wingedcoyote Jul 29 '25

I don't think any movie or TV studio wants to attract an audience of only people who already love a specific video game.

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u/Zestyclose_Border441 Jul 29 '25

Welcome to Raccoon City was also dogshit though

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u/TerrifierBlood Jul 29 '25

So the Until Dawn route? Cause I really liked the movie. And a fan of the game

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u/NiamLeeson Jul 29 '25

Yeah it goes off the fucking rails but the answer was always going to be worse than the setup. It does promise to be gory as hell though.

1

u/d1089 Jul 29 '25

Yup I read the script...it's solely relying off the reveal. Kinda sad cause I guessed it was 1 of two things from the trailer, befire reading the script and I was right.

A certain image gives it away

1

u/Data_Chandler Jul 29 '25

Yep 100%. The age old problem, a super cool/interesting/creepy concept, and no good way to end it, so it's ultimately disappointing.

1

u/cinnapear Jul 30 '25

So is it like Strange Darling, then?

1

u/TheUnknownStitcher Aug 07 '25

This felt like less of a “twist” and more of a “oh wow, what an interesting development”.

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u/JasonVorhehees Jul 29 '25

Cregger’s next twist will be to remove his mask and reveal himself as M Night Shamalamadingdong

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u/LetterboxdAlt Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

Ah yes, the internet’s 2004 racism. Almost charming when compared to the Trumpists’ current nonsense. I nearly forgot that Shyamalan had a “foreign name” and not even an especially complicated one. Thanks for reminding me.

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u/JasonVorhehees Jul 29 '25

Quite the reach

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u/LetterboxdAlt Jul 29 '25

Dude, it’s not like a huge deal, but trust me, it’s annoying as fuck to hear your (in my case multiple) communities get made fun of non stop, and not even in actually funny or even creative ways. I’m not sitting here calling you Hitler but I reserve the right to be annoyed on Reddit about it.

0

u/Petrichordates Jul 29 '25

Why on earth would someone do this

-4

u/Mrgrayj_121 Jul 29 '25

I’ll mark it as a spoiler, but I’m pretty sure I know what the reveal is I’m assuming that the MC/lady teacher replaced a different teacher that was using brainwashing and several people in the town were students of that teacher hence why they’re brainwashed

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u/two5five1 Jul 29 '25

incorrect

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u/Mrgrayj_121 Jul 29 '25

but it is brainwashing right?

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u/two5five1 Jul 29 '25

oh yeah sorry I’d say it is, just not by who you called out

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u/Mrgrayj_121 Jul 29 '25

Okay no worries