{"id":62493,"date":"2025-08-11T22:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/62493\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T22:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T22:34:09","slug":"the-ending-of-weapons-is-very-personal-to-zach-cregger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/62493\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ending of ‘Weapons’ Is Very Personal to Zach Cregger"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can\u2019t watch a movie like Weapons<\/a> and not sense that parts of it come from deep within a person. The portrayals of family, fear, and loss\u2014it\u2019s all heartbreaking and scary even before you get to<\/a> the chills and thrills. Writer-director Zach Cregger<\/a> fully admits the film was written as a way for him to cope with the loss of a good friend, but his personal connections to the material go even beyond that.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Vanity Fair<\/a>, Cregger talked about some of the big reveals in the final act of the film and how they were inspired by his own upbringing. Spoilers to follow.<\/p>\n

\"Io9spoiler\"<\/p>\n

In the film, we learn that the sole survivor of the classroom disappearance, Alex (Cary Christopher), is secretly taking care of his parents, who have been possessed by the magic of his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan)<\/a>. Alex has to cook, clean, and feed his parents, who sit there completely helpless, all as a way to make sure they are keeping up the appearance of something normal. \u201cThis is more of a diary entry about me,\u201d Cregger said about the scenario. \u201cThe last chapter of this movie is straight-up autobiographical. That was my childhood. You live with an alcoholic parent, and there\u2019s this inversion of the dynamic. The child can become the [caregiver].\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, in Weapons, Alex\u2019s parents aren\u2019t alcoholics. Cregger decided to make that parallel a little less obvious by making the influence on Alex\u2019s parents supernatural. Nevertheless, it\u2019s meant to evoke the same feelings. \u201cThis foreign substance comes in and it changes everyone\u2019s behavior,\u201d Cregger said. \u201cThe house becomes a scary place. You can go to school and act like everything\u2019s cool, and then you come home and you hide from a zombie parent. That felt so real to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing Cregger created this scenario as a bit of a way to work through his childhood struggles adds even more catharsis to Alex\u2019s eventual triumph over Gladys and the return of his parents. And yet, as per the final line of the movie, not all the children recover from the trauma. Which feels both sad and realistic.<\/p>\n

Weapons is now in theaters. Read more from Cregger about the making of the film here<\/a> and here<\/a>. And head over to Vanity Fair<\/a> to read more about the ending, including the look and history of Gladys.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t watch a movie like Weapons and not sense that parts of it come from deep within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337,8725,14159],"class_list":["post-62493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-weapons","tag-zach-cregger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}