Ever since the revolutionary 1960s, books and films have rewarded audiences for embracing outsiders, while scolding them for distrust of the unknown. Wicked is just one notable example; instead of setting up a logical dichotomy condemning evil (the Wicked Witch of the West) and affirming goodness (home, safety, Kansas), audiences are made to feel like Salem inquisitors for failing to recognize that the reclusive, green-skinned witch was actually the good character all along.
Call it the downstream effects of deconstructionism, post-colonialism, or queer theory—academic frameworks that interrogate power, dismantle binaries, and celebrate “otherness.” The result has been a narrative logic that reframes “stranger danger” as intolerance and suspiciousness as pitchfork-wielding Puritanism. Such conventions valorize outcasts, while mocking cautious suburbanites and conformists as small-minded—prioritizing the subversion of clichés, the appearance of counter-culturalism, and a broader social push toward diversity and tolerance.
But things are beginning to shift—and not just on right-wing X, where the practice of “physiognomy” is enjoying a wry, meme-driven comeback. With the release of Weapons, a new horror-suspense film directed by Zach Cregger, the rising tide of normality has reached the big screen. This late-summer blockbuster doesn’t treat protective instincts as laughably prudish. If anything, it flirts with reactionary nativism. Call it revenge of the conformists, jocks, or trads—call it revenge of the patriarchy—after decades of art exalting freaks and misfits. For the first time in a long while (perhaps since Liam Neeson took on foreign crime rings in Taken), a film validates suspicion, instead of openness, on the part of the unlikely white male hero.
At first glance, a conservative interpretation of Weapons may seem off the mark. The villainous witch Aunt Gladys, for instance, is almost a caricatured nod to loony QAnon paranoia, evoking conspiracy theories about adrenochrome and Marina Abramović in grotesque fashion. But the deeper thread running through Weapons—the reason it signals a real, post-woke cultural shift—is much subtler.
Unlike the flood of Hollywood remakes and villain backstories which, as in Wicked, rely on recycled plot lines, Weapons opens with an entirely original mystery: A third-grade class of children, save one, has vanished from their beds. “This is where the story really starts,” a child narrator explains. Driving the search to find them is Archer, a desperate father frustrated by sluggish police work. Taking matters into his own hands, Archer approaches a family whose child, Bailey, has also gone missing, asking to see their Ring camera footage, in pursuit of clues. Yet while Bailey’s mother goes into “Karen” mode, using therapy-speak to scold Archer’s search, the father lets him see it. When a discovered clue proves pivotal, the film lands a subtle rebuke of “Karens” who “longhouse” the men around them.
And Bailey’s mom is not the only wife who’d be better off listening to her husband. There’s also Alex’s mom, dead-set on welcoming Aunt Gladys—a mysterious, eccentric stranger whom she is ill-equipped to host—into the family home. When Alex’s father protests, she rebuffs him—ushering in a reign of terror and gore.
Indeed, the only husband outside the longhouse is Archer. When his wife urges him to temper his search, he presses on—portraying a vision of fatherhood in contrast to the passive, oafish Homer Simpson archetypes of the last few decades.
Archer’s resolve proves salutary, for unlike so many films today that operate in vague relativism, Weapons exists in a world of stark good and evil—of angels, demons, and witchcraft. In this environment, the deeper in bondage an individual is to sin, the more vulnerable to evil, entropic forces; the “purer”—reinforced by virtues like sobriety and chastity—the more protected and resistant.
There’s the alcoholic, skipping AA meetings for adultery. There’s the junkie, committing petty theft to score fixes. Alcoholism, addiction, and adultery are just some of the vices that enslave these memorable characters, predisposing them to spiritual oppression. But not Archer. Somehow, while first introduced as coarse and judgmental, he emerges as the story’s most virtuous character, and thus the most resilient to the mysterious force systematically sucking characters into its sinister vortex.
Archer is everything we’ve been programmed to mistrust ever since society decided to deconstruct traditional masculinity. He’s a heterosexual, white male and protective father. He’s a blue-collar builder who’s achieved financial success through hard work and sweat. The film doesn’t slap a Trump bumper sticker on his pickup truck, but it doesn’t have to. He’s imperfect—prone to snap judgements—yet his purity offers him a degree of immunity to the evil swirling around him.
In fact, his only real flaw is his struggle to say “I love you” to his son. Talk about a return to the strong, silent type. Unlike many of the Weapons characters who are avatars of their generations (the “quirky” Millennial teacher, the “Disney Adult” Gen-X couple) Archer is a throwback to the Greatest Generation.
His arc—in addition to generating insights about gender and sin—also raises questions about immigration and borders. In a move that feels rare for contemporary Hollywood, his story is not programming us to support open borders. It’s rewarding us for recognizing that boundaries can be valid safeguards against chaos, disorder, and foreign norms.
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Fittingly, much of the strength of Weapons—a story fractured into chapters that intensify dislocation and dread—crystalizes through the concept of “parasite.” The 2019 award-winning movie Parasite bore textbook vestiges of our postcolonial programming: On its face it looked like an indictment of resentful lower classes leeching off the wealthy, but the upshot was a “both sides” parable that ultimately villainized the supposed “host” body as much as the intruder.
Refreshingly, Weapons doesn’t play that game. In this relentlessly-paced story—as psychological absorption and suspense escalate—a teacher scrawls the word “parasite” on the chalkboard. But this time the message isn’t layered in indulgent nuance. It’s blunt. Strangers aren’t always benevolent—and subversion isn’t inherently virtuous.
While some of the film’s aesthetics verge on the absurd or postmodern—Aunt Gladys, for instance, is exaggerated to the point of pastiche—the effect isn’t a flaw so much as a provocation, activating our natural repulsion to decay. But beneath the self-referential edges poking fun at the Gothic genre, audiences will find no clever inversion, no both-sides handwringing. Just a simple, unnerving reminder that the stranger isn’t always good and the subversive isn’t automatically profound just because it’s subversive. Sometimes the real moral is unapologetically traditional: The things closest to home are worth protecting, and it’s not prudish nor bigoted to think so. Family warrants safeguarding, innocence deserves defending, and suspicion can sometimes be a sign of sanity rather than sin.
