Weapons, the new horror movie by Zach Cregger, the creative force behind Barbarian, is making a lot of noise and it’s for good reason. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes are going wild over the film. Audiences are going ballistic with laughter, and they're raving about its fresh originality and smart storytelling! Underneath the thrills and chills, I believe that “Weapons” speaks to something deeply important. Its paranoia-drenched suburban setting strikes a nerve which is all too familiar with the anxieties simmering in the hearts of many a young African.

Is Paranoia Justified, Or Is It?

Her well-polished world-building leaves readers with a palpable sense of paranoia and anxiety. Now, let's connect some dots. In the West, suburban paranoia makes for a great plot device. Beyond its story, it represents our fears of safety and security in what looks like a perfect bubble. In much of Africa, paranoia is not just the territory of the plot device. It’s the stress you experience when it seems like political instability is an ever-present sword hanging over your head. It’s that anxiety that comes when the machine of corruption draws down all your resources and leaves your communities unsafe. It’s the terror that the police, the very systems you assume are supposed to protect you, are actually protecting themselves from you.

Think about it. How many times do we witness promises reversed, elections stolen. How many times have resources been plundered, leaving communities impoverished? Through this lens, the paranoia built into “Weapons,” sharpened by its semi-rural setting, rings painfully true. It’s a haunting microcosm of a continent still struggling to live in the shadow of violent extraction and encroaching neocolonialism.

Is It Just a Movie? Is It?

The review, which focuses heavily on the film’s unique ethos and fully realized characters, provides a compelling view in contrast to other narratives. This is where the “Forgotten Voices” aspect really resonates. How often do we truly hear the other side of the story from creative, complex, and dynamic young Africans via traditional media outlets? We watch the stereotypes, the poverty porn, the clickbait narratives. But where’s the recognition of the nuanced anxieties, the complex hopes, the quiet desperation that simmers just beneath the surface?

I am curious how young people all over Africa would respond to “Weapons.” Would they see a simple horror movie? Or would they gaze back at a funhouse mirror image of their own panic over a dystopian future full of unknowns? Would they feel seen and understood, or more deeply alienated by a genre that largely excludes the realities of their lived experience? This is the question that haunts me. The quality of a film is much more complicated than just saying “good” or “bad.” We need to think about who it appeals to and what kind of story it is telling them.

I hope “Weapons,” with its mix of fear and dark humor, will engage you to discuss. And it has the power to create spaces where we can talk about those fears — very real fears that we’ve learned to shush, ignore or laugh off.

The Price of "Progress"?

The movie mixes big-level ideas with midnight-movie horror. This blending, this juxtaposition of the intellectual and the visceral, speaks to the core of the African experience in the 21st century. We are stuck between nostalgia and progress, between promises of prosperity through globalization and the pain of its disparities.

"Weapons," with its "nastiness, meanness, and depravity reminiscent of 80s shock horror," might be a metaphor for the brutal realities of a world that prioritizes profit over people, power over justice. And that’s why the film works so well, because it appeals to our base instincts. It equally, if not more, courageously unveils the human ugliness that lurks on the other side of our societally crafted facades. But for many Africans, that ugliness isn’t just confined to the screen—it’s in their daily reality.

  • Is the promise of economic progress worth the cost of cultural erosion?
  • Is the pursuit of development worth the environmental degradation that disproportionately affects African communities?
  • Is the adoption of Western ideals worth the loss of our own unique identities?

The intensity and dread are not merely fictional tropes. These echoes reveal, layer upon layer, a continent’s anxieties that continue to haunt. It aims to shape its distinct destiny in a world all too eager to destroy it for personal gain. So then, let’s not simply rave about “Weapons” just for its ingenuity and inventiveness. Let's use it as a starting point for a deeper conversation about the silent fears that haunt Africa's youth. This is the time, and these are the people, from whom we need to listen. Please, let’s honor their real concerns, and work towards a world where paranoia becomes an artifact of the past, only appearing as a narrative device in horror movies.

The intensity and dread are not just cinematic devices. They are echoes of the anxieties that plague a continent struggling to find its place in a world that often seems determined to exploit it. Therefore, let's not just applaud "Weapons" for its cleverness and originality. Let's use it as a starting point for a deeper conversation about the silent fears that haunt Africa's youth. It's time to listen to those forgotten voices, to acknowledge their very real anxieties, and to work towards a future where paranoia is no longer a lived reality, but merely a plot device in a horror movie.