Inside Zach Cregger's mystery-shrouded Weapons. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images, Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection.)Filming under code names. Using draconian software to distribute scripts. Holding a press junket where, for the most part, the cast can't say anything.
Welcome to Zach Cregger's Weapons, the most secretive movie of the year so far, and by design, one of the hardest to describe. The Barbarian director's highly anticipated follow-up is a multiperspective horror epic that reinvents itself almost every 20 minutes. The less you know going in, the better.I saw the movie, which is in theaters on Friday. Here's what I'm allowed to tell you: At 2:17 a.m., all but one child from the same class runs out of their homes and vanishes. A community is left questioning who - or what - is behind their disappearance.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"With Avengers, if you say anything, you're going to prison for 20 years or something. You just cut everything off in your brain," Weapons star Josh Brolin tells Yahoo. He knows a thing or two about Marvel rules, having played supervillain Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Weapons, he says the secrecy felt different than other projects he's done. This one is rooted in creative protection rather than corporate enforcement. "It's more of an old-school PR thing where they're just not telling anybody anything."So far, it's working. As of Thursday, Weapons sits at a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest-rated horror movie of the decade."It seems like the story is its own character," Brolin says. "They're not revealing a lot. I think it's super smart."But behind all the mystique lies something far more intensely personal - a film rooted in mortality and one filmmaker's need to make sense of an unexpected loss.
The grief beneath the horrorCregger began writing the script after one of his best friends suddenly died, an experience that shaped not just the tone of the film, but its entire structure.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"The only silver lining from that terrible, dark cloud was that I was able to write from a place of urgency and not from ambition," he tells Yahoo. "The idea of these children leaving and this community left to grapple with how to feel about it - that phantom limb you get when you lose someone - it just felt very pressing."The director says he was able to inject himself into all of the film's characters who were experiencing the aftermath of the sudden disappearances."All the characters that this movie examines are some aspect of me dealing with the same thing," he says.
Star Julia Garner says that raw feeling is part of what drew her to the script.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"The story is so personal to [Cregger] - you can tell," she tells Yahoo. "I think that's why it's so beautiful, and I think that's why it will resonate with people. I mean, yes, is it a horror film? Sure. But I think it's also about people and loss and losing control over something."Zach Cregger talks to Yahoo about his secretive film Weapons. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News)Though Cregger is quick to tell me he's "so over horror movies that are a meditation on grief and trauma," Weapons still carries the quiet weight of heartache. Audiences likely won't pick up on it."Most people who watch this movie are not really going to know that that's where it comes from. And that's good. It should be a fun movie," he says sincerely. "But for me, just as a way of writing, it came from a real place."Not every mystery in Weapons has a deeper meaning, though. The 2:17 a.m. time stamp at the center of the plot? "I wish I had a great answer," Cregger says with a laugh. "I don't. It just had to be some time."Guarding the mysteryWhen it was time to make the film, Cregger took extreme measures to make sure the story stayed under wraps.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"If you know where it's going, then a crucial aspect of this thing evaporates," he says. "I want people to go on the ride and to be surprised. A thriller should surprise you."To protect that ride, Cregger used a software called Embershot - "a really hardcore, draconian kind of secret software," he says - to distribute the script to select studios and actors."You have to do this triple authentication. You can only read it on the app online. I could watch and know what page you're on as you're reading it, which is a little messed up," he says. "I didn't do that ever ... but I could if I wanted to!"The script couldn't be shared, downloaded or screenshotted and would disappear the moment Cregger decided it should. Filming also took place under an alias. "Maybe it was overboard," he says. "But I think ultimately, it's important to preserve the mystery."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGarner appreciated the tight-lipped environment, even if it