KaMIST
Weapons’ Scream-Worthy Strategy
Hello, OptiMIST People! Back at it again with KaMIST — your weekly dose of insights into the latest marketing trends. This week, we’re diving into the eerie and brilliantly strategic campaign behind Zach Cregger’s newest horror film, Weapons.
In a market saturated with repetitive horror formulas, Weapons burst into the public eye with a refreshingly mysterious approach. Unlike typical horror trailers that reveal too much, the marketing team embraced the power of the unknown — creating anticipation, confusion, and massive online speculation.
The first teaser only offered a few unsettling clips paired with a chilling voice-over, revealing almost nothing about the plot. And yet, in just 45 seconds, it racked up over 2.8 million views. With so little information given, audiences everywhere rushed to craft theories, clues, and breakdowns. Communities formed, discussions exploded, and the film gained international buzz before the actual release.
To elevate the experience, the marketing team blended experiential marketing with narrative storytelling. In multiple U.S. cities, child actors recreated eerie “Weapons runs,” mimicking scenes from the movie. Their blank stares and synchronized movements transformed everyday places into unsettling, real-world extensions of the film’s universe.
Warner Bros. then launched a cryptic website, Maybrookmissing.com, where audiences could dig deeper into clues and interact with the fictional world of the film. Suddenly, the film wasn’t just a film — it was an experience.
Alongside this, the team also deployed a powerful buzz marketing tactic: releasing “found footage” clips styled like CCTV surveillance from inside the film’s universe. The hyper-realistic format blurred the line between fiction and reality, sparking organic conversation and massive virality on social media.
And the results? Nothing short of scream-worthy. Weapons garnered millions of trailer views, went viral on TikTok, earned a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, and generated a staggering $268 million against a $38 million budget.
A true horror film keeps audiences gripping their seats with fear and curiosity — and the marketing of Weapons perfectly captured that spirit.
Wanna get more insights into marketing? Tune in every Thursday for more KaMIST!