{"id":59962,"date":"2025-08-11T20:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59962\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T20:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:28:07","slug":"the-sneaky-barbarian-cameos-in-weapons-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59962\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sneaky Barbarian Cameos in Weapons Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

An in-universe viral marketing website<\/a> previously revealed that Weapons<\/a> takes place in the same world as Barbarian, writer\/director Zach Cregger\u2018s feature debut. But the connections also extend to a deranged pair of Barbarian cameos in Cregger\u2019s latest.<\/p>\n

Weapons, now playing in theaters, sees the small suburban town of Maybrook completely unravel in the wake of the bizarre disappearance of nearly an entire classroom of elementary school students. The unpredictable horror movie shifts through multiple perspectives to piece together the mystery, including that of Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the desperate father of one of the children who went missing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While we won\u2019t spoil what happens in Weapons, it\u2019s safe to say that Archer remains dogged in his pursuit of answers, becoming a thorn in the side of the local authorities as well as Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), his missing son\u2019s teacher. Archer\u2019s bid for answers leads him to the door of another pair of parents directly affected by the mass disappearance, and here\u2019s where Cregger\u2019s pitch black humor slyly shows its teeth.<\/p>\n

Archer knocks on the door to inquire about the footage on the home\u2019s Ring camera, only to be denied by the woman who answers. Undeterred, he simply waits for the arrival of the woman\u2019s husband, whom he then catches off guard until he gets his way, earning the husband death glares from his unapproving wife. It\u2019s a scene that\u2019s hysterical already, but takes on a darker undertone when connecting it to Barbarian.<\/p>\n

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Josh Brolin in \u2018Weapons\u2019. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the couple in this scene is played by Sara Paxton, Cregger\u2019s real-life wife,\u00a0and Justin Long, two actors who both appeared previously in Cregger\u2019s feature debut and whose characters shared a rather grim connection. In Barbarian, Justin Long plays AJ, a disgraced actor recently fired for sexual assault allegations from his television series\u2019 co-star, Megan. The twist in Barbarian, or at least one of many twists, is that the allegations proved true and \u201cnice guy\u201d AJ emerged as one of the film\u2019s true villains.<\/p>\n

Megan is a character only heard via phone and voicemail, not seen, and she\u2019s played by The Innkeepers and Last House on the Left actor Sara Paxton. You can hear her voice just over the halfway point, in a deeply uncomfortable scene that sees a drunken AJ call her to apologize for the assault, in an ill-advised attempt to gaslight Megan over the accusations.<\/p>\n

The disturbing connection between Paxton and Long\u2019s characters in Barbarian is what makes their brief appearance as a suburban married couple in Weapons such a twisted Easter egg for fans.<\/p>\n

Up next from Cregger is his take on Resident Evil<\/a>, set to star Weapons actor Austin Abrams. It\u2019s early yet, but it feels safe to assume the horror filmmaker will nestle in a few twisted Easter eggs to his previous works. We\u2019ll of course be keeping our eyes peeled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Austin Abrams in \u2018Weapons\u2019. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An in-universe viral marketing website previously revealed that Weapons takes place in the same world as Barbarian, writer\/director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[32463,96,32464,2839,32465,56,54,55,162,12049],"class_list":["post-59962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-barbarian","tag-entertainment","tag-justin-long","tag-movies","tag-sara-paxton","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-weapons","tag-zach-cregger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}