Weapons is the horror movie everyone has been talking about lately – and for good reason. It is a silently introspective, creepy tale that puts the disappearance of children, who mysteriously leave their homes and run away into the night, at the core of its haunting tale. And what’s more terrifying than when something that scares us witless is also grounded in truth?
That’s the case with Weapons. Director Zach Cregger told Slash Film in an exclusive interview his follow-up to Barbarian is “an autobiographical movie in a lot of ways.”
When talking about the inspiration behind Weapons’ storyline, Cregger said it wasn’t a case of a book like with Barbarian, or any other piece of media “It was a personal tragedy that happened in my life,” he shared. “If Barbarian was an outward-facing movie, a movie that had a lot to say about society, [...] Weapons is a movie that's very much like me looking inwards and inventorying my life.”
How is Weapons based on Zach Cregger's real life experiences?
Opening up to personal friend and GQ writer, Sam McPheeters shared how Trevor Moore had worked closely with Cregger during their comedy hay-days on Whitest Kids U’ Know. It was in 2021 that Moore suddenly died at the age of just 41, fatally falling from his balcony.
Working through his grief, Cregger began to write Weapons. “The movie’s about that overwhelming emotion you get when you lose someone close to you. This script was me venting about that. So I didn’t explode.”
What is perhaps most moving is Trevor’s time of death was said to be around 2.30am, a time close to the 2.17am in which the children left their homes in Weapons.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cregger elaborated on how he was able to take this loss and let it bleed into the characters. “It's an incredibly personal story. In fact, there are certain chapters of this that are legitimately autobiographical that I feel like I lived.
“I had a tragedy in my life that was really, really tough. Someone very, very, very close to me died suddenly and, honestly, I was so grief-stricken that I just started writing Weapons, not out of any ambition, but just as a way to reckon with my own emotions.”
So while the events of Weapons didn’t quite literally play out in real life – there’s no true event in which 17 children all left their beds and went missing – what Cregger does well is harness his dealings with grief and trauma to create something authentic and moving.
Weapons is currently showing in Cineworld and is available in special formats, including IMAX and 4DX.
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