You can’t watch a movie like Weapons and not sense that parts of it come from deep within a person. The portrayals of family, fear, and loss—it’s all heartbreaking and scary even before you get to the chills and thrills. Writer-director Zach Cregger fully admits the film was written as a way for him to cope with the loss of a good friend, but his personal connections to the material go even beyond that.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Cregger talked about some of the big reveals in the final act of the film and how they were inspired by his own upbringing. Spoilers to follow.
In the film, we learn that the sole survivor of the classroom disappearance, Alex (Cary Christopher), is secretly taking care of his parents, who have been possessed by the magic of his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan). Alex has to cook, clean, and feed his parents, who sit there completely helpless, all as a way to make sure they are keeping up the appearance of something normal. “This is more of a diary entry about me,” Cregger said about the scenario. “The last chapter of this movie is straight-up autobiographical. That was my childhood. You live with an alcoholic parent, and there’s this inversion of the dynamic. The child can become the [caregiver].”
Of course, in Weapons, Alex’s parents aren’t alcoholics. Cregger decided to make that parallel a little less obvious by making the influence on Alex’s parents supernatural. Nevertheless, it’s meant to evoke the same feelings. “This foreign substance comes in and it changes everyone’s behavior,” Cregger said. “The house becomes a scary place. You can go to school and act like everything’s cool, and then you come home and you hide from a zombie parent. That felt so real to me.”
Knowing Cregger created this scenario as a bit of a way to work through his childhood struggles adds even more catharsis to Alex’s eventual triumph over Gladys and the return of his parents. And yet, as per the final line of the movie, not all the children recover from the trauma. Which feels both sad and realistic.
Weapons is now in theaters. Read more from Cregger about the making of the film here and here. And head over to Vanity Fair to read more about the ending, including the look and history of Gladys.
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