September 1 will be a bad day for fans of the new horror hit Weapons. The movie, which was written and directed by Zach Cregger and has a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%, is currently tearing up the box office charts, having grossed more than $150 million worldwide within the first two weeks of its theatrical run.
2025’s Weapons follows a small town rocked by the simultaneous disappearance of 17 schoolchildren and boasts a star-studded ensemble cast that includes Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan, Benedict Wong, and Josh Brolin.
Weapons has drawn in audiences thanks to its rich characters, its memeable visuals, and its blend of horror and comedy. However, it is not the only horror movie that Zach Cregger has written and directed.
Barbarian Leaves Its Current Streaming Home Soon
2022’s Barbarian is departing from a major streamer. The Zach Cregger movie follows two people who have accidentally double-booked an Airbnb, only to discover that the house lies atop a series of tunnels that hide a terrifying secret. It was Cregger’s first horror movie after a directorial career dominated by comedy projects including Miss March and The Whitest Kids U’Know.
Barbarian, which stars Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, and Richard Brake, was also a critical and commercial success, grossing $45.4 million against its reported $4.5 million budget and earning a glowing, Certified Fresh, score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
There are a number of connections between Barbarian and Weapons that make the two movies a solid double feature. This includes the appearance of Justin Long, a similar storytelling structure based around vignettes, and Cregger crafting terrifying scenes using dark basements, closed doors, and other common sources of domestic fear.
Netflix has announced that Barbarian will be leaving the library of the streaming service on September 1. Because of the nature of their licensing process, movies that aren’t Netflix originals come and go frequently. In fact, Barbarian is part of a slew of departures that includes Us, Trainwreck, The Holiday, Sicario, Red Eye, Burn After Reading, and 50 First Dates.
While there are several horror and thriller movies being added to the platform on September 1, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Escape Room, and The Boy Next Door, none of the incoming тιтles have as close of a connection to a contemporary hit, making the loss of Barbarian feel much more pronounced.
What This Means For Barbarian
The departure of Barbarian strikes a major blow for fans of director Zach Cregger, because availability on Netflix allows the widest-possible streaming audience to watch it, because the streaming platform has by far the most subscribers compared to its compeтιтors.
It does not seem like Barbarian will be coming to a new streamer on that same day. This means that, as of September 1, it will only be available on streaming via much more expensive services such as YouTube TV ($82.99 a month) and Fubo ($32.99 a month). Additionally, it is not widely available on physical media.
Therefore, on September 1, rental and purchase via VOD platforms such as Amazon Prime and Apple TV will be more or less the only way to see Barbarian. This strikes a huge blow to Cregger’s predecessor to Weapons right at the time when his new movie is thriving in theaters.
