Warning: This post contains vague spoilers for Weapons!Weaponshas arguably become the biggest horror movie of the summer following its release earlier this month, marking a huge success for Zach Cregger and the impressive ensemble cast.Weaponshas passed some major box office hurdlesand is well on the way to becoming another massive hit for Warner Bros.
Weaponshas found similar success among critics,currently sitting at 94% on Rotten Tomatoesand finding itself on many pundits’ shortlists for a Best Picture nomination when the Oscars roll around next year. However, despiteWeapons’ immense critical success, it’s not the only horror movie from this year to explore its key themes of possession and witchcraft.
Bring Her Back And Weapons Are Both Secretly Possession Movies
Bring Her Backmay not have been 2025’s biggest commercial success, butit’s one of this year’s most impressive hidden gems. The movie follows two teenage siblings who are forced to move in with a friendly single mother after the death of their father, leading them to a house plagued with dark secrets and supernatural rituals.
Much likeWeapons, the latest horror feature fromTalk To Me’s Philippou brothers keeps the audience in the dark for the majority of the runtime, leaving them guessing as to what’sactuallygoing on behind the scenes.Both projects keep the truth of their horror hiddenbefore eventually revealing a major twist in the final act relating to possession and mind control.
Bring Her Backhas been compared to movies likeHereditaryandInsidious, with many critics praising its ability to use horror tropes to dissect the family dynamic. It’s a story about parental abuse and generational trauma,using possession and witchcraft as allegories to explore these universal themes. Again, this is somethingBring Her Backclearly has in common withWeapons.
WhileWeaponsincorporates more comedy into its storyand doesn’t always take itself as seriously asBring Her Back,Cregger’s tale is just as sincere in its storytelling and touches on many of the same key themes. These thematic similarities eventually morph into narrative ones inWeapons’ final act, as Cary Christopher’s character finds himself in an explicitly similar situation to the siblings inBring Her Back.
The distinct approaches that Cregger and the Philippou brothers bring to their respective horror movies can make it difficult to catch these similarities at first, but they’re clearly there, and they represent an ongoing trend in the horror genre of using supernatural concepts to explore real, grounded issues. NeitherWeaponsnorBring Her Backis solely a possession story; they’re both deeply human stories about people.
Bring Her Back
Cast
Piper, a partially blind teen, and her protective older brother Andy move into the home of Laura, a grieving foster mom with chilling secrets. Months shy of turning 18 and gaining custody of Piper, Andy must confront Laura’s disturbing rituals as sibling bonds are tested.
