Zach Cregger's Weapons

Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you, the tnmn community.

Last week’s category: wedding movies. The results are posted to our website and Letterboxd account every week.

This week’s category: submit your favorite underdog movies. Reply to this email with your favorite underdog movies and why we should watch it. We’ll feature your submission in next week’s newsletter.

By the way, this category was inspired by The Underdog Newsletter, a newsletter I like to read that's produced by a fellow tnmn member.

Note: If your submission doesn't comply with the category, I’ll become a highly-skilled cat burglar. When I become a virtually undetectable thief, I’ll rob you of all of your kitchen appliances EXCEPT for your sous vide. If you don’t have a sous vide, I’ll bring you one. You’ll be forced to sous vide all of your meals, but you’ll have no way of searing the finished product. All of your food will be perfectly cooked down to the degree. But the texture will be yucky. Ew. So, ya know. Follow the category.

A spoiler-free description of the movie.

All but one child from the same classroom mysteriously vanish on the same night at the same time.

If you like these things, then you’ll like the film.

▶ Multiperspectivity. The same way that Pulp Fiction breaks its story into chapters, each focused on a different character’s perspective. Apparently multiperspectivity, which is one of those words that feels very much made up, is the name of this style of storytelling.

▶ Screaming. This movie was very scary. I counted four or five times that I jumped out of my seat and literally grabbed Drew by both shoulders. Drew — the guy who, if he was portrayed in a sitcom as the wacky neighbor — his catchphrase would be: “I don’t like to be touched!”

▶ Laughing. Zach Cregger is an alum of the sketch comedy group The Whitest Kids U Know. Just as with his debut feature, Barbarian, Cregger’s Weapons is horrifying (see above), laden with social commentary, and somehow also made me laugh. Like, a lot.

▶ Hot dogs. There are seven hot dogs in this movie — keep your eyes peeled. This is actually a tribute to writer-director Zach Cregger’s late best friend, Trevor Moore, who once starred in a comedy sketch called “Hot Dog Timmy”.

For a limited time, our friends at the EarBuds Podcast Collective will recommend a podcast to pair with our headlining film.

This week: Campfire. Enter Jim Harold’s universe of paranormal storytelling. This podcast pairs well with Weapons by bringing us purportedly true ghost stories that get dark, strange, and outright terrifying.

— Arielle at EarBuds Podcast Collective

What I liked about it.

I was a late bloomer. Like, at 16 years old, I was barely pubescent. While my friends were all trying to “get with girls”, I was trailing behind them in the school hallways without a sexual care in the world.

Scrawny, virtually hairless, I’d squeal “Did you see the new Jon Lajoie video on YouTube?!?” to earn the attention of my sexually preoccupied friends. It went great. High school loved me.

It was during those high school glory days that I remember visiting Drew in college and getting exposed to The Whitest Kids U Know — a new sketch comedy group at the time. The comedy troupe where Zach Cregger, the writer-director behind today’s headliner, Weapons, got his start.

I was overjoyed to have a new YouTube comedy troupe to share with my friends. I had no clue I was watching a future horror auteur make land mine jokes on YouTube. Though, perpetually boner’d as they were — they probably wouldn’t have cared either way.

They say comedy and horror rely on the same devices to succeed. Building tension. Misleading the audience. Subverting expectations to land a punchline. They aren’t wrong, and Cregger’s experience in comedy shines as much in Weapons as it did in his 2022 feature debut, Barbarian.

Cregger arguably had as much on the line with this film as Jordan Peele had with his follow-up to Get Out. And in just about every way you’d hope, he succeeds.

I suspect each of us will take different things away from this film — but, to me, Weapons is a story about the parasitic nature of a communal tragedy. Cregger wrote it in the midst of grieving the untimely death of his best friend, Trevor Moore.

The film is about the ways these sorts of tragedies elicit different responses from each member of the community. And how those responses so often grate against each other. And perhaps how the aftermath of a tragedy continues to draw life from the community that it preyed upon.

Cregger deftly tells this story broken up into smaller chapters, each from the perspective of a new character — which brings more emphasis to the central theme of communal tragedy, while also adding interest to the events of the plot.

This storytelling device — multiperspectivity — allows more detailed shading on characters who would have been outlines at best in a more linear edit.

Cregger’s work with cinematographer Larkin Seiple, who worked on Everything Everywhere All at Once, is another layer of craft emphasizing the importance of perspective in the film.

His camera work was also a touch reminiscent of another recent tnmn headliner — Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast. Affixed to a car door slamming closed. Gradually revealing a dark room with a slow swing open of a bedroom door. Often going stride for stride from behind the head of a character, turning with them through empty aisles of a liquor store.

Julia Garner, in the wake of her brilliant turn in Ozark, delivers a bristly performance as Ms. Gandy. Opposite her, often, is a wonderfully flinty Josh Brolin.

As mentioned, Cregger more than demonstrates his comedy-born knack for suspense and timing in Weapons.

In concert with a prickly score and some genuinely terrifying set pieces, Weapons will scare the shit out of you. But then, almost in the same breath, it will make you laugh your ass off.

Horror has long proven to be a natural fit for comic minds like Zach Cregger’s. With Weapons, Cregger shows he’s more than a one-hit wonder. He’s a distinctive voice in film — someone we’ll be watching on the silver screen for quite some time.

Enjoy the film.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat”.

▶ Josh Brolin replaced Pedro Pascal in one of the lead roles. Pedro Pascal was originally cast in a key role alongside Julia Garner in late 2023. However, due to scheduling conflicts with his commitment to Marvel's The Fantastic Four, Pascal had to exit the project.¹

▶ A massive bidding war erupted over the script. A heated, multi-studio bidding war broke out over the Weapons script in January 2023. New Line Cinema ultimately won the rights. They reportedly paid Cregger eight figures to write and direct the film — more than double the entire budget of his 2022 debut, Barbarian. There are rumors that Jordan Peele fired his reps after losing the deal. But these are just rumors.²

One great line of dialogue from the film.