Of the many comedians-turned-filmmakers we’ve gotten in recent years, no one is doing it quite like Zach Cregger. From being one of the founders of “The Whitest Kids U’ Know” to an impressive roster of comedic film roles, no one saw Cregger coming with the explosive, gory, point-of-view-shifting horror sensation that was “Barbarian” in 2022.
Back in the writer-director chair again, Cregger brings us an even more earth-shattering horror landmark with “Weapons.” One night, all but one child from Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) ’s classroom mysteriously runs off into the night, leaving Justine and the rest of the community questioning who – or what – is behind the children’s disappearance. We sat down with the writer-director to discuss what is doubtlessly one of the year’s best films.
You made a great fucking movie. I have to start there. Watching it was an insane experience. I want to start with the highly publicized bidding war over the script. What was it like to go from “Barbarian” taking the world by storm, to having the industry fight over your next project?
It was insane. I still don’t really know how to feel about it. I haven’t really let it in. Honestly, if I think about it too much, it gets weird. So I try to focus on the job I can control, which is making the movie. I’m not gonna pretend it wasn’t cool, but the responsibility becomes much more enormous, where it’s like, they spent all this money, and I gotta deliver the goods. It’s a moment of going ‘yay,’ and then we gotta roll up our sleeves and stress out for two years.
I could feel, watching Weapons, that you were so confident and sure-handed writing it. Did it feel that way at the time?
Sometimes you’re in the zone, and I feel like I was in the zone when I was writing Weapons. My rule is to try to eliminate myself from the process, which might sound confusing or abstract, but I believe in being a conduit to creativity. If I intellectualize it, it’s dead, so I try just to turn my brain off and let my subconscious go, and that’s when the best stuff comes, and then I don’t really need to second-guess it. It’s a little woo-woo, but I really believe in it.
I was reading a little about how the impetus for the film was trying to process losing your close friend, but what was beautiful about it was you finding a catharsis by tapping into the commonplace tragedies we’re feeling as a society.
I wasn’t trying to comment on or even tap into collective societal tragedies. I was purely writing from a personal place. However, with art and especially storytelling, the individual is universal. So I’m more than happy if anybody relates to what I went through and what this movie is examining, but I wasn’t thinking ‘oh, America’ at all. I was thinking ‘oh, Zach.’
I feel like that’s how we get so many of these on-the-pulse films.
I mean, look at “Get Out.” Jordan Peele wrote an incredibly personal movie, and yet, you don’t have to be a black person to identify with Daniel Kaluuya’s character. I feel like everyone who watches that movie has some insight, which resonates because the more personal it is, the more universal it becomes. That’s the power of storytelling.
You seem very interested in POV storytelling. You played with it a bit in “Barbarian,” but it’s really dialed up in “Weapons.” What is it about shifting perspectives that really gets you going as a filmmaker?
I don’t know why, but this movie seemed to demand being told through these different, interweaving perspectives. It wasn’t a decision; it was just how it unfolded. I like all of these characters. They’re all interesting, and they’re all flawed in their own way. They’re all orbiting the same central mystery. It just felt like the most interesting way to tell the story. So I didn’t argue when the movie started going that way. I just kinda agreed to the film on those terms.
Do the different POVs all represent different parts of you?
Oh, yeah. Take Justine. I’m an alcoholic. I understand how an alcoholic can outsource their life and their mental health to their work, or substance abuse, or toxic relationships, and all sorts of things like that. So I feel very much linked to her. Or Josh’s character, and the rage you feel when somebody passes. The second stage of grief is anger, and I totally get that. Alden’s character is someone who’s debating whether or not they want to burn their whole life to the ground. I’ve been in that situation so many times. It was a way for me to just put all of my most pressing bullshit into all these different characters, and to just really sing my song through differences.
It is interesting how we can see our personal issues reflected in society at large.
Yeah, maybe! The society at large is, again, just something that makes me shut down when I think that way.
That’s totally fair. There was just a lot of interesting imagery, such as the kids running away, for example, evoking Napalm Girl.
That’s in the script. That’s like page one. It’s something like, they run like the girl with the napalm.
Can you walk me through some of the imagery you used, for example, in the dream sequence?
Sure, without spoiling, there’s a dream sequence with something floating above the house. But that’s just what came to me, and I didn’t think twice, I was just like, ‘okay, go ahead.’ That’s the thing. I think most people come to me like, ‘Why’d you do that?’ And I don’t know. I like thinking, ‘what’s the scariest thing I could put above this house?’
Balancing something truly terrifying and tragic with comedy is so difficult. Your collaborator, Drew Hancock, did it really well with “Companion;” you’ve done it twice now with “Barbarian” and “Weapons.” What do you think the secret is to getting that balance?
It’s not going for a joke. There are jokes on the cutting room floor where I was like, ‘this is so funny,’ and they weren’t. At test screenings, they didn’t work. The secret is to let comedy come from an authentic reaction to a bizarre scenario, for example, when Josh wakes up from his nightmare, and he goes ‘what the fuck?’ That’s him behaving completely authentically; therefore, we all identify with it, and it’s funny. That’s not me trying to be clever. That’s just like, oh, this is how I’d react, and I think whenever it comes from a real place, it works. If I try to force a joke, it won’t work.
I do want to ask about your inspirations and homages here. You have, I think, one of the best homages to “The Shining.”
If you call them homages, or you call them ripoffs [laughs]. Are you talking about the door scene or the woods scene?
A lot of the third act with the kid and the parents, the door, obviously, and even the bathtub, kinda play with our knowledge of that film.
Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s true.
Beyond “The Shining,” what other works inspired you?
Oh, man. So many inspirations. “Magnolia” is all over this movie. “Prisoners” is all over this movie.
That’s so funny, I described this movie to my friend as “Prisoners” by way of “Magnolia.”
That’s awesome. “Hereditary” too. “Picnic at Hanging Rock.” “The Virgin Suicides.” Just those kinds of suburban noirs. Those are the ones.
That’s what I wanted to wrap up on, because you’ve done two films that fall into that setting. What do you think makes it fit horror so well?
Because it’s so banal, you know, because we spend so much time in these places and we’ve become so accustomed to them, the idea of of a place as simple as an elementary school turning on you, and becoming the location of horror, feels like more of a betrayal as opposed to, say, there’s something up on a space station where an alien gets you. By the way, I love “Alien.” I think it’s a masterpiece, but it’s sometimes harder to access that horror. However, even as I’m saying that, I don’t even agree with myself, because that was pretty accessible to me, being fucking scared of aliens! (Laughs) But I mean being able to inject horror into where we live every day. I think that’s exciting and really effective.
“Weapons” hits theaters August 8th via Warner Bros.
