In a film packed with eerie silences, tense close-ups, and brutal bursts of violence, the real horror moment in Weapons doesn’t come from blood or brutality. The real horror moment occurs when Josh Brolin enters the frame wearing that jacket, a perfectly weathered, sun-bleached relic of Americana so recognisable it could easily be mistaken for a supporting character.
At first glance, it’s just a jacket. Tan and dusty, with a well-worn collar and that unmistakable air of rugged masculinity. But for anyone even vaguely tuned into the cinematic fashion landscape, there is an instant, uneasy jolt of recognition. We have seen this jacket before. Not just once, either — it’s become a uniform of sorts, threaded through decades of gritty American storytelling. And now, in Weapons, it returns like a ghost you thought you had buried.
The jacket in question is a classic canvas chore coat—heavy-duty cotton, buttoned front, boxy silhouette—the kind made famous by workwear brands like Carhartt, Wrangler, and Filson. It’s the type of outerwear that started life on farms and construction sites before being co-opted by everyone from hipsters in Dalston to A-listers on the Cannes red carpet. But when Josh Brolin puts it on, it morphs into something more menacing — something with narrative weight.
There is a psychological unease that comes from being familiar with horror, and Weapons director Zach Cregger clearly understands this. Much like Jordan Peele’s Nope, which toyed with genre tropes to unsettle viewers, Weapons leans into costume as a form of uncanny terror. Brolin’s jacket doesn’t just evoke Americana—it conjures up every character who has ever worn one to conceal a weapon, bury a body, or deliver a deadpan monologue about justice. It’s Llewelyn Moss in No Country for Old Men. It’s Bruce Dern in Nebraska. It’s Matthew McConaughey’s dusty detective in True Detective. It’s not a jacket anymore—it’s a cinematic cypher for danger.
Fashion in horror has long been an underrated storytelling device. Think of the red raincoat in Don’t Look Now, the white dress in Midsommar, or even Freddy Krueger’s stripy jumper. In each case, clothing isn’t just costume — it’s iconography. Weapons extend this concept even further. Brolin’s jacket doesn’t drip with blood or billow ominously in the wind. It just sits there on his shoulders, heavy with implication. It tells you everything you need to know — that this man has done things, seen things, and might be about to do them again.
There is also a deeper layer at play. In fashion terms, this jacket is peak normcore — utilitarian, anonymous, and timeless. It’s the sort of thing you could find in a second-hand shop in Sheffield or worn by a Shoreditch barista who moonlights as a DJ. Yet here, in Brolin’s hands, it feels militarised and threatening. It’s a clever inversion of contemporary fashion’s obsession with authenticity and ‘heritage’. What does it signify when characters representing moral decay repurpose the clothes we fetishise as’real’ and ‘honest’?
That is what makes it the biggest jump scare in Weapons. It whispers, not shouts. Because it doesn’t feel like a costume — it feels like something pulled straight out of your own wardrobe. It’s familiar. Too familiar. And in a genre that thrives on the unexpected, there is nothing more terrifying than recognising yourself—or your clothes—as the villain. Sometimes, the scariest monster is one that looks just like us.
So next time you pull on your trusty tan jacket, maybe pause for a moment. Ask yourself: is this just fashion? Or is it foreshadowing?
