And I know Cregger is capable
New Movie Trailer: ‘Weapons’ (Teases Children Vanishing in Horror Film From ‘Barbarian’ Director Zach Cregger)
- Thread starter playahaitian
- Start date
Do you like all his work?
Did you like Weapons?
Do.you understand the issues people have with it?
I do like both
What are people's issues?
I posted some negative reviews in the thread. Inconsistencies and holes in the story, its boring, the villain makes no sense and is under developed, it makes no sense how the characters reacted ad responded etc etc.
over analyzing it
‘Weapons’ Filmmaker Zach Cregger on Script-to-Screen Changes and Bill Hader’s Key Contribution
In a spoiler conversation, Cregger reveals that Hader suggested a plot point that unlocked the young character of Alex Lilly.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
‘Weapons’ Star Austin Abrams Talks the Wild Ending, ‘Willow’ and Why He Pities His Tragicomic Character
The rising star, who will lead filmmaker Zach Cregger's 'Resident Evil' movie, also discusses how his time on set with Josh Brolin impacted their upcoming feature 'Whalefall.'
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Of Course ‘Weapons’ Is About Something
Audiences are arguing over the meaning (or lack thereof) behind Zach Cregger's horror hit — but the truth is there's no such thing as a correct answer when it comes to the film.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Weapons
Zach Cregger shares the story of how Amy Madigan's viral sensation got her start.By
Nick Romano
October 2, 2025 9:00 a.m. ET
3Comments
Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys in 'Weapons'.Credit:
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros.
You know you've made it as a filmmaker when drag queens officially adopt one of your characters as a new persona.
Such a moment has already happened to Aunt Gladys, the sinister, lipstick-smeared, orange wig-wearing, Pennywise-channeling old lady played by Amy Madigan in Weapons. Writer-director Zach Cregger has been living in Prague since the movie opened in theaters on Aug. 8, so he's mostly enjoyed the runaway success of his work through osmosis. However, he's certainly seen the Gladys-inspired drag.
"I prayed that would be the case," Cregger tells Entertainment Weekly over Zoom as Weapons gets its home release. The filmmaker remembers speaking with his head of makeup, Leo Satkovich, and costume designer Trish Summerville, who created the look of Gladys with Cregger, when he predicted, "I hope that one day somebody does this on Drag Race."
"I dare to dream," he adds of the Gladys drag he's seen online. "That, honestly, takes the cake for me. That makes me so happy. You have no idea."
Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) in 'Weapons'.
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros.
'Resident Evil' movie is 'entirely original story' set in game world, Zach Cregger says (exclusive)
'Weapons' is first horror film of 2025 to top box office 3 weeks in a row, but 'KPop Demon Hunters' may be true winner
Madigan's Gladys has taken on a life of her own after becoming an overnight viral hit with audiences. In the film, about 17 missing children from the same classroom at Maybrook Elementary School and the town left to deal with that loss, Gladys arrives as the creepy aunt of the young Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), the only student in that class who didn't vanish under mysterious circumstances. With a strange bonsai tree and rune-engraved bell, Gladys performs a ritual that turns her victims into lifeless puppets that she can command while feeding off their life force.
Now that the movie has been out in the world for some time, Cregger is ready to share the origin story for this character, and it's one giant spoiler.
"I had written another script many years ago that was kind of the Gladys story," he reveals. "It was told from a child's perspective, and this crazy woman picks him up at school and takes him home and has subsumed his parents. It's about him trying to figure out how to get out from under her oppression. I shelved it. This was a long time ago. Then, when I started writing Weapons, I didn't know where the kids went. I had no idea. I was just kind of following the mystery. I was about 50 pages in when I realized I always loved that little kernel of the story I had, and I was like, 'That can fit perfectly onto this.'"
For Gladys' magic, Cregger was inspired by two things. One was The Serpent and the Rainbow — not the Wes Craven horror movie, which he admits, "I can't necessarily recommend," but the non-fiction book on which it's based, the Wade Davis-penned exploration of voodoo practices in Haiti. The second thing was the song "Dancing in the Head" from British post-punk band the Mekons.
"That song is just an instruction manual on how to create a zombie," Cregger says. "It's no singing, it's just someone explaining to you this ritual. I love it 'cause it's a weird ritual where you soak a dollar bill in rum and set it on fire and arrange four mirrors for the four corners of the earth and get a shard of a human skull and all these things. I was like, 'One day, I wanna make up my own crazy, evil recipe.' This movie was my chance to do that."
Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys in 'Weapons'.
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros.
Cregger admittedly needed help to get the ingredients just right. He turned to Weapons production designer Tom Hammock. "It needed to be simple and very digestible. I needed people to get it the first or second time they saw it," he explains. "Everything I kept coming up with was, like, two steps too complicated."
He was in a Beachwood Canyon cafe in Los Angeles with Hammock, trying to work this out. The final ritual they landed on was as follows: Gladys fills a bowl with water, she wraps a personal effect from her victim(s) around a thorny branch from her strange tree; she coats the branch in her blood; if needed, she rings a bell inscribed with the number six and a small upside down triangle to paralyze the subject; she then snaps the twig in half to begin the spell; and she drops the twig into the water to end it.
Cregger remembers essentially shouting all of these steps at Hammock in that very public cafe as he got more and more excited: "Tom was like, 'You were getting really crazy and people were noticing.'"
Once Madigan got on board, it took the role of Gladys to a whole new level. The script never changed, Cregger clarifies. The wardrobe and general aesthetic of the character were also already in his mind prior to casting. He describes it as, "Amy just brings Amy to it. This firecracker but total precision. Amy is able to play in these two extremes and alternate between them effortlessly."
A perfect example is the finale chase sequence. After she hexes various characters to kill each other, Alex gets the jump on Gladys by turning her own magic against her. He spells the kidnapped children locked in the basement to chase her down and rip her limb from limb. Cregger shot the scene, one of the funnier moments in the movie, guerrilla style. The cameraman followed the kid actors closely behind as they tore through the suburban homes like an out-of-control mudslide, wrecking doors, windows, and furniture in their wake.
Josh Brolin on set of 'Weapons' with Zach Cregger.
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros.
Cregger thought about Raising Arizona, the 1987 comedy starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter, about a man who steals a baby so he and his wife can start a family. "There's a chase scene in Raising Arizona that just goes way too far, and it's so fun," Cregger says. "Point Break has one. I love those kinds of crazy foot chases where you go in and out of houses."
The script originally had Gladys run out the front door before the kids spill out the windows and catch her on the lawn. Cregger then had "this really not-pleasant realization" in the prep phase. "It's gonna be a lot better if we crank it up to 11," he recalls saying.
Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.
They were already over budget from the beginning. Cregger admits, "I had to put a lot of my own money back into this movie, and I think that final sequence is a large part of what demanded that." He has no regrets, to be clear. "Dude, I'd do it all over again because it makes people laugh, it makes you smile at the end of this traumatic journey that we've been on," he says.
That image of Madigan as Gladys throwing her hands up in the air and screaming as she runs from house to house with a horde of hexed children chasing her is one shot forever etched into our brains. According to Cregger, that was a credit to his star.
"We had a stunt person on set," he says. "Amy was like, 'What is that person doing here?' I was like, 'Well, Amy, if you fall, I am gonna be, you know, doomed.' She was like, 'I'm not gonna fall. I can run.' And she ran, dude. She ran that whole thing." And straight into our hearts.
Weapons is available for purchase on digital retail platforms and will be available on 4K UHD starting Oct. 14.
Similar threads
