The Big Picture - ‘Weapons’ Is Why We Go to the Movies, With Zach Cregger!
Episode Date: August 8, 2025'Weapons' is finally here, and Sean gets back in the void for a deep dive on one of his most anticipated films of the year. But before diving in, he and Amanda are joined by Brian Raftery to discuss h...is narrative series, Mission Accomplished, that will run on the feed throughout the rest of August (2:02). The limited series examines the making of 12 great 2000s movies and chronicles how Hollywood and America changed during the Bush years. Next, before covering ‘Weapons,’ Sean uses another recent horror release—‘Together,’ starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie—as a comparison point to explore the current state of horror (14:19). Then, Sean shares five things he loved about Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons,’ starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, and makes a syllabus for the movie, one of his favorites of the year (24:33). Finally, Sean is joined by Cregger to unpack his sophomore horror feature film and share how the significant increase in resources impacted his process, how his life and career changed following the success of ‘Barbarian,’ and why he knew he was up to the task of directing this incredibly ambitious project (46:41). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Zach Cregger and Brian Raftery Producer: Jack Sanders This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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We have a very special announcement.
We had so much fun at our live show in Chicago, we decided to head back out on the road this fall.
We're heading to the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Saturday, October 4th for a live show, and we'd love for you to join us.
Mark your calendars because tickets will go on sale on August 12th at 2 p.m. Eastern Time at 929.9.9.9.9.9.9.9.org. Again, the big picture will be
in New York City at the 92nd Street. Why on Saturday? October 4th and tickets go on sale Tuesday, August 12th at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. We hope to see you there.
We'll dig into this twisty, delightful new movie soon, along with another recent horror hit
together.
Later in the show, I'll be joined by Craigor to talk about weapons.
Zach was last on the show a few years back with his surprise horror hit Barbarian,
huge favorite of mine and CRs, simply one of the most exciting new writer-directors to come
along in a long time.
Zach's super smart guy, fun guests, stick around for that chat later in the episode we get
pretty deep into the movie.
But before that, programming note for our listeners, this will be the last proper big picture
episode in August. Amanda and I are taking a brief break and we'll be back when we return
from the fall film festivals in September in our place on the feed. We're very lucky to have
Brian Raftery back hosting another narrative series about the movies and Hollywood. If you
haven't had a chance to hear his past summer series on Siskel and Ebert or Vietnam
portrayed on screen or the Sony hack, check those out as well. You can all find them in the archives
of the big picture. Now let's hear from Brian about what he has for us this summer.
Well, Brian Raftery is here.
It's summer, so there must be a Brian Raftery series on The Big Picture.
Thank you for being here.
Absolutely.
So just in a nutshell, explain what this idea was and how you went about pursuing it.
Yeah, the idea was to look at the Bush years, which at one point was the worst presidential time in my lifetime.
But now, boy, it looks really good.
In retrospect.
And I know it's been like a joke lately.
Like, weren't the Bush years much better?
And I'm like, they weren't.
But they were.
So the idea is to look at sort of two big things going on in the early 2000s.
One is obviously what's going on in the world post-9-11 with Bush, with Katrina, with this kind of really emotionally tumultuous time,
but also looking at these big changes that happened in Hollywood from basically 2000 and 2009.
And it was maybe the most kind of epochal shift in Hollywood in my lifetime.
You have, obviously, franchise has been around for a long time.
But in the 2000s, they really start going with the IP, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Lord of the Ring.
Shrek. I mean, all these sort of big franchises. And at the same time, when the decade begins,
you have a lot of the carryover from the 90s. You have all these great indie filmmakers. You have
these kind of like mini major studios. And by the end of 2000s, they're gone. And it's like,
the Marvel Universe is about to begin. Netflix is taking off. It's like, okay, the Hollywood
we knew it had kind of like these last couple of years in the 2000s. So the whole idea of the
show is looking at a couple of the really great movies and how they were made, looking at some
of the big events and how they were kind of fed into the event into these movies and vice versa.
But also I was looking at this big shift in Hollywood that I don't think has really kind of
been called out because there were understandably more important things going on in the 2000s
that we were all thinking about. So, you know, how we went from, you know, the 70s cinema to three
Shrek movies was not top of mind in 2005, 2006. So again, maybe we should have been focusing
on that. It was probably more fun than dealing with the real world back then.
Did you feel like you had enough of a critical distance from all of these movies to think
about how they fit into not just a cultural landscape,
but like a genuine world historical landscape.
I think so.
I hope so.
I mean, as you all know,
because you've been talking about all year.
I mean,
some of these movies are now 23, 24, 25 years old.
They are, these are old movies.
And I do think you do need a certain amount of distance
to understand the time that you're going through
and what the art of that time is kind of telling you.
And I think 15, 20 years is like a pretty good time.
Also, like, I'd really rather just look at the early 2000s right now
than look at 2025 in the world.
It's a really good point.
I did think that the movies that you chose, which I think we're going to try not to spoil in this conversation.
We'll see how far we get, and maybe people can guess.
But I thought that they're all very smart choices.
Some of them were surprising to me.
And they did all have a tinge of their personal choices.
You bring to them a reason of maybe not like I was there when this world historical event happened.
But you are looking back.
remember, okay, this is what stands out to me from 2005 and how I was thinking about the
world, and this is the movie that explained it to me. But I was wondering, like, how did you
get to that list? Because they're not the most obvious all of the time. No, they're not always
obvious. I mean, I think the first list, because we had a Google Doc at one point, had like 75 to 80 movies.
And there are, when you think of the 2000s, I mean, one thing we sort of decided early on was
I didn't want movies that were too much on the nose.
Like, I didn't want to do, if you say to someone, what's a movie about the Bush years,
someone might talk about a very specific documentary.
And I kind of didn't want to do that because I kind of want to look at movies that maybe did take five, ten years to quite realize how they were dealing with the time in which they were made.
But there were some really painful choices.
I mean, I remember, like, I cut down the list at one point.
I'm like, all right, now we're down to 25 movies.
I can't cut a single one of these.
And then we cut them more.
And I was looking for movies that had a great story behind them.
because a lot of the show is kind of how these big kind of crucial cultural movies were made.
But I also wanted to really look at what was it saying about the Bush years?
What was it saying about all these things that were swirling around with a recession, with Katrina,
with the war on terror, with Bush's re-election in 2004?
What were these movies kind of saying?
And sometimes they're saying things very accidentally.
That's why some of the movies are kind of surprising where you're like,
what does that movie have to do with Bush?
But you're looking at this bigger picture and this bigger time,
and everything going on feeds into the art of that time.
So, you know, a lot of these movies are movies that I also personally love.
That makes it easier for me to talk about them in an enthusiastic way.
And they're all movies, I think, are really interesting.
Even the ones that I don't love as much as the others,
I'm like, the story of this movie and its existence is interesting enough to warrant its inclusion.
One of the great moves that you make is to pair movies together in individual episodes.
So how did you think about matching or maybe creating contrast in the conversation between,
and threading them together, which I think is the biggest achievement of the show?
That's really hard.
I mean, threading together is one term,
kind of like pulling it together
at the last minute out of stress.
That's not true.
No, but some of these things you're like,
you are looking for a connection,
because there's one episode
where there's two movies
that are drastically different in tone,
in subject,
but they're kind of set during the same period,
and they're set during the kind of the same industry,
and they're set in the same state.
And even that is kind of like a connective tissue
because one episode is about these two movies
set in the past at a time
when Americans were just longing for the past,
And these two films were saying, actually, like, all that nostalgia for that America that you're missing is like...
Oh, yeah. I know. This is a good episode.
Yeah, like that nostalgia is for a time that never really existed. And these two movies about the past are actually sort of showing what this country has always been like.
So things like that. And, you know, sometimes it's also, it's also fun to think the like big picture listeners seeing the two titles in an episode and going, what?
Like, how do these two movies tie together? And there's a lot of like, sometimes that can be kind of like a torturous kind of logical thing.
but sometimes the movies just fit together
in ways that you don't expect
and they kind of comes together in the writing
and hopefully in the narration.
What did you find in the reporting
trying to talk to people about movies
that were made 20, 25 years ago?
And especially movies that some of them are clear totemic works
or at least hardcore cult movies.
And some are just kind of like a little bit forgotten
or cast aside in some ways too.
What kind of reactions were you getting
when you reached out to people about chatting?
I think people are interested
in talking about this period, like in the same way that we're all starting to think about it more
in the last couple years. And I think part of it is like that progression of time. I think there's also
a recognition that this was a period in Hollywood history where the studios, again, they were
leaning in pretty hard on franchises as the 2000s went on. But if you look at some of the slates that
some of the studios had in like 2001, 2002, they're making every kind of movie still.
Like they're really, and a lot of filmmakers were getting like, still, we're still getting
these kind of big permission slips to go, okay, you have one start.
here's $60 million, go make that
weird R-rated drama.
And I think that's for filmmakers.
This is a time they like, too.
I mean, it's kind of the same way to that 9-9 book
where it's like, oh, I get to talk about the time
when me and all my friends
made these underrated movies that everyone loves now.
Sure, I'm happy to talk about that.
You're not calling and asking these directors about their third divorce
and what in the studio gig they took that summer
to kind of pay for their mortgage.
Like, these are things people want to talk about.
And I think there's also a recognition that these movies,
some of them have become,
A lot of the movies in the show are not huge blockbusters.
I mean, I don't know if we have a single, like,
we have like maybe one that got close to $100 million, maybe two.
But like these are movies that,
some of these movies, people, everyone knows.
And they become culturally really important.
And people want to talk about that.
And again, the Bush years were weird.
And now we have this perspective to talk about all this crazy stuff that happened
that we couldn't quite understand or maybe articulate at the time.
So we're not going to give away the titles of the films.
But what, since we're doing context clues,
What was your favorite conversation that you had, interview that you had for the show?
I had a bunch.
There is one filmmaker whose movie, there is a certain movie that, like, one of the reasons I want to do this show is because there's a certain year where a couple of these very big movies came out.
I'm very big on movie years.
And there is one film that is very downbeat, very 70s American film that is a comfort movie for myself.
For a lot of people, I think some people might have lawn signs about this movie and how much they love it.
And that filmmaker is someone I just respect a lot.
And I love this script.
I love the direction.
And it was also, this person was very grateful for their time.
And in the last 20 minutes, this is like,
this is just Brian Raptory asking questions about this movie.
He loved it.
It was sort of like, I'm not going to use this.
But when we got scene X?
Because like, I could talk or think about this movie all day.
So, yes, I was very excited to talk to that filmmaker.
But everyone we got was great.
And again, these are movies that I think some of these people realize
are maybe beloved, but a little underappreciated.
the grander kind of picture of the 2000s.
Does it spoil it to ask what the hardest cuts were?
Are we allowed to do that?
Things that will not be featured?
What was the last couple of movies you cut?
I will say the one person I wanted for the show and I couldn't get because I think
he is the defining 2000s filmmaker is N. Night Shyamalan and we try to make it just couldn't
work out.
And I love his movies, even the ones I don't love, I love.
I think his movies are a fascinating, like the entire Bush years can be told through
like the four or five movies he made during that time.
And so that was the hardest.
cut. Also, because I couldn't pick just one.
Like, I was really trying to what is like, do you do
Unbreakable, which I think is a really interesting
movie about 2000. Do you do signs?
Which is like a really amazing kind of
accident on 9-11 movie. Do you do the
happening, which is an amazing movie for
a gazillion reasons. But N-night
is kind of one person where I felt like, oh, I would have
loved to get him, but also I feel like I also
would have just gone down a nerdy conversation that would have
been very insular about George Bush
Wawa's living in Pennsylvania.
I've interviewed him in the past, and I do
enjoy speaking with him. It's funny you say that. I was
thinking about the list that I'm in and I've been doing on the show as well. And there's not
an M. Night Shyamalan movie on the list. And it's for the exact same reason that you described,
which is sort of like, all of his movies to me are all like four-star movies and not five-star
movies. And that feeling of, well, it'd be not the happening. It's not a four-star movie,
but you know what I'm saying. It's a 10-star movie for me for various reasons. Yeah.
There's something kind of, I'm just always so happy to have a new movie.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Think about it to unpack it. And it's flawed, their flaws are always so
evident too, but he would have been a great subject for conversation around this.
I'm very excited. So we, you know, we're about to go on a little bit of a break here, and
it's been an interesting movie year. So you're like an avid movie watcher. You're really up
on contemporary movie culture, too. You were just saying that you've really been at the movies
this summer. I've been the movies this summer. I was finishing a project and this project,
and I finally got some free time. So yeah, I've been, I've been very happy this summer. I have
had, I mean, I saw Eddington, which I'm not been able to stop thinking about, but I will say
the most fun movie going experience was with my wife and I saw 28 years.
years later. I don't want to give away the ending, but I was the only person in that theater
who's lost their mind happily with that anchorman ending of whatever that was in the gang show.
It's a really fun thing because I love the feeling when you're all in with the crowd.
This is one of those things where I was like, none of you morons get how great this is.
The AMC 16 Burbank, you're usually a very good audience. You do not appreciate how great
and crazy this movie. So I was very, that was one of the most fun moviegoing experiences of the year.
And also, I went to go see Amadeus in 70mm,
when my wife had never seen it.
Yeah.
The machine broke.
There were some technical things.
And we wound up watching it on finishing at home on Tubi.
Still a perfect movie from 70mmy to Tube.
I heard from some people.
Actually, our friend Izzy was there too for that screening too.
And yeah, it broke and it was kind of a nightmare.
But you know what?
God bless them.
They really did their best.
But we've had a certain point, like, let's go back.
But like, just seeing Amadeus for the first time in like 30 years.
I was like, perfect movie.
No notes as to quote Hamadeus.
Like, it's just like, I love that film.
So, yes, I'm always, I've been very happy
at the movies this year.
I've seen a lot of great stuff.
I'm still trying to catch up
to some things I miss.
But, yeah, I mean, I have like three or four movies
planned out for the next two weeks
once my wife's backing down.
Anything for the rest of the year
that you're really excited about?
I mean, I'm very excited for the new PTA movie, obviously.
But I'm super excited for the naked gun.
I've seen the original naked gun 10 million times.
It is absolutely a movie that in Peewee's Big Adventure
lines from those movies go into my head
every single day, whether I know it or not.
And like, like everyone, I'm just like, please make comedies again in the theater.
Like, I don't think like Jackass 3 was like the last time, I mean, I moved it up at the end of 28 years later.
But like Jackass 3 or so, maybe 4, whatever it was, was like the last time I saw a really big comedy of the crowd that was into it.
And so I'm really excited for that.
And my kids are all the ones to see it now, I think.
Yeah, I think so.
Who cares?
Yeah.
There's one scene that maybe you wouldn't want to watch together, but maybe not.
Yeah.
That's all right.
They've been through worse at this point.
Brian, thank you.
you so much. Thank you guys.
I hope people listen to mission accomplished.
I'm excited for everyone to hear it.
Okay, cool.
Okay, it's just me now.
I'm doing this episode by myself.
And that's because Amanda and Chris are traveling.
And so weapons being very important to me, I have a lot of deep feelings about it.
And I wanted to pair it today with another movie, a movie that came out last week.
And I think that's appropriate because they're both horror movies in a sense.
We're in the era of what has been unfortunately.
dubbed elevated horror. It's a catch-old term used to describe a certain kind of genre movie that
bore the pretentious weight of being smarter or deeper than your average standard issue teen slasher
a monster movie. Of course, there is no such thing as elevated horror. That's just marketing
speak to make a movie like It Follows or The Witch, two early examples of this,
seem more special, more high value than a regular old horror movie. And the massive success of
movies like Get Out and Hereditary Mask the fact that horror has always been
elevated insofar as it's the most flexible, pleasurable genre to nestle thematic and emotional
ideas inside of. I'm fond of saying that horror is my favorite genre because I'm dead inside
and it awakens something in me, a kind of giddy sickness that I really find thrilling. But
this wave that started roughly a decade ago has persisted with lots of mediocre movies
loudly announcing its ideas about trauma and loss and existential despair. It's been good
for business. You know, horror movies are the most reliable non-superhero IP-style film.
at the box office over the last 10 years or so
but it has been a bit of a mixed bag for the art form
and so together and weapons are two sides of the same coin
one movie is great in my opinion
a true standout from a rising voice in the space
and one is perfectly solid
good time at the movies they're both mortonly funny
they both have strong performances
one is aggressively sold
on its theme which doubles as its premise
and the other is sold on mystery
confusion elision
the dark romance of not knowing
That's a feeling I love at the movies.
The latter is something that is increasingly rare.
It doesn't mean that the latter isn't shot through with big ideas.
There are big ideas in the movie weapons, but they're subtext, unannounced, and kind of
ready to be picked over after you've seen the whole piece.
But one movie is just pure suspense in the telling, kind of ticking clock, just waiting
to rattle at its conclusion.
Well, the other is diagrammatic.
You know, it's an exploration of its idea, a little bit at the expense of its story.
So this has been an exceptional year for thematic horror movies from,
strong-minded otor's sinners.
It's one of the years' great movies, of course.
Firmly behind it for me is Danny Boyle's 28 years later.
Even Eddington, which is far from a pure horror movie,
but when you really think about it,
is steeped in the same angst and anxiety and provocation
that the genre is best of pursuing.
And, of course, fitting from Ari Aster,
who has a long lineage of horror in his career.
So now one of these two movies I'm discussing today
may be a turning point of sorts that may be a little bit strong,
but I wanted to pin them together
because I'm hoping that we start shifting in one direction,
and away from another.
But that doesn't mean that the first movie I'm going to talk about
isn't worthwhile or worth talking about.
So let's get into it now.
So together is written directed by Michael Shanks.
It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie,
who are of course a real-life married couple.
The movie premiered at Sundance.
I think it was probably the noisiest Sundance premiere of the year,
along with maybe a handful of other movies like Sorry Baby.
This one was an acquisition by Neon.
They bought it out of the festival for a large sum.
It played the Midnights at Sundance and had people screaming.
and running in the aisles, usually a good sign.
And now the movie has been used to kind of revive the feeling of long legs last summer.
Strong marketing, heavy marketing around a gross movie that is indebted to a history of horror movies.
It's off to a pretty good start.
It's made about $13 million already at the box office.
It's not bad for an indie.
And it's about a couple named Tim and Millie.
They're years into their relationship.
They find themselves at a crossroads because they move from the city to the countryside.
They leave their friends behind.
They leave the world behind that they know really.
well. Millie's got a new job as a teacher in this small town and Tim who is a musician who's
kind of on the downside of his creative life and is trying to get back to that feeling of special
creativity is doing so while also figuring out if he and Millie are right for each other long term.
And so they encounter a mysterious and unnatural force early on in the movie and it changes their
lives, changes their love, changes their bodies. This is a
really very modern riff on body horror. David Cronenberg often use these kinds of movies to explore
ideas about the self. Our desires, our frailties, our overriding urge to control the flesh, right? This
movie is more about symbiosis. So Tim and Millie are thrust together at this very distinct stage
of their lives, mid-30s, settling in, gearing up for the back half of their lives, slowly becomes
a rift on the codependency that forms in long-term relationships. Anybody who is in a long-term
relationship with a partner can probably testify. You know, I have several in my life.
Of course, my wife, who I love dearly. Amanda and I are in a very long-term relationship here
on the podcast. Sometimes you can hear us getting very frustrated with each other. Other times
you can hear the natural affection. But there is a kind of reliance upon one another.
And sometimes it's toxic. Sometimes it's exciting. This movie is more interested in initially
the downsides. And then perhaps ultimately the upsides, though it is a little bit more obtuse in that
respect so there's a lot of fun stuff the setup is a little preposterous and it left me a little bit
wanting so after cracks are revealed in tim and milly's relationship early on they go out for a hike in
the woods near their home along the way they get lost and it begins to rain and they accidentally
fall into a cave like sinkhole like you do when you're on a hike in the rain and there it's clear
that they've fallen into what appears to be a sort of sunken church and it's decrepit and toxified by some
sort of cosmic force that's in the water
at the bottom of the cave.
This is the same cave that we've seen in the movie's
Cold Open, which caused two dogs to become
physically fused to one another in a really
gruesome introduction.
So, naturally, I guess,
Tim and Millie drank the water in the
bottom of this cave to survive,
which I just found
really hard to accept. And then
eventually the leads to them becoming
not just emotionally attached, but physically
attached. They escape the cave, but
this kind of sap-like glue
begins to adhere them
or bind them together
and it's a really stupid setup
for a pretty smartly constructed movie
this invisible force keeps pulling them
toward each other no matter how they feel
about their relationship or even how far away
they are from one another there's a pretty clever
sequence where we really understand what's happened
when Milly goes for a drive one day
I think she's headed off to work
and Tim's taking a shower
and inside of the shower's four walls
he gets kind of bonked around like a pinball
because of the way that he is
physically connected to Millie
as she is making left turns and right turns
on the roadway. It's a pretty cool
scene. There are a lot of
other examples of this. There are some
really high tension ones.
There's something a little bit strange about the movie
though. Bree and Franco were both
very good in this movie.
Franco is usually more of a live wire type
as a screen presence. Here he's a sad sack.
Bree is a little bit more standard
fair. She's usually very exceptional as a
perky, regular gal, trying to make it all work,
her new job and her boyfriend
with these loser equality
and her domesticated future.
She's a really sensitive
and smart actor
and she's fun to watch
slowly realize
and accept
that her boyfriend's paranoia
about this condition
is actually more real
than it seems.
The movie has a couple
of really amusing set pieces
that find Brian Franco
being drawn together,
their bodies kind of contorting
until they're fixed.
When they learn that the muscle relaxers
serve as like a depressant
for this force
that's keeping them together,
there's this great shot chaser scenes.
where they hoover up a bunch of crushed up pills
and then this Chekhov's power saw
slices them apart.
It's kind of worth the price of admission,
but it is an unsubtle scene in a series of them.
There's another one in which the couple literally
becomes stuck together inside of each other
while having sex in a bathroom stall.
It kind of keeps hammering home its core theme.
You know, when you're in deep in a relationship,
you can feel stuck for better or worse.
And so the movie resolves itself
in a little bit of a grown worthy way.
So we're kind of deep into spoiler territory.
If you haven't seen together and you don't want to spoil it for you,
maybe fast forward a few minutes or so.
But eventually the movie decides that the sunken church that we saw earlier in the film
in which Tim eventually returns to to investigate
is the former site of an ancient cult
that preaches the transformative power of soulmate fusion
in which two people are literally, literally wedded together into a single organism.
And Tim and Millie have been resisting making this big commitment
throughout the film and they're magically almost demonically connected.
they fight and they fight and they fight this union
until they finally just decide to succumb
and be together as one forever.
And the movie ends as Millie's parents show up for pre-planned lunch
at their home and discover that Tim and Millie
are now one seemingly, you know, binary single person
who I guess we would call Tilly.
And so Tilly greets their parents
and it's a little bit of a too cute button on a movie
that wants to have it both ways, I think,
as like a super serious,
exploration of commitment, and also a gross-out physical horror comedy.
And together isn't bad.
I mostly enjoyed myself with the movie, and I don't want to pick on it too much compared
to weapons, but it does underscore where I think horror was or has been.
What kinds of movies tend to rise to the surface, especially those through the smaller
super indies like Neon and A-24, versus what old-school studio horror suspense films were
about and could accomplish and maybe hopefully will begin to accomplish again soon, which leads
me, of course, to weapons.
So weapons, as I mentioned, written to direct by Craigor.
This is his second feature after Barbarian.
It stars Josh Bolin, Julia Garner, Alden, Aaron Reich, Austin Abrams, Carrie Christopher,
Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.
And it's shot by Larkin Sipley.
He shot everything everywhere at once in a couple of other great films.
The log line is simple.
seen the trailers. We've been hyping this movie on the show for a little while, in part because
of how much Chris and I really loved Barbarian and because Amanda and I saw this trailer at Cinema
Con and we were very excited. And even before that, there was news of a large bidding war about this
for this script in Hollywood. And there's some mythos. And part of that mythos is around the idea
of this being what Zach has described as Magnolia meets Hereditary, which of course is a big
fat bullseye for me and anybody who knows what I like.
So the story of the movie is one night, all but one children from Justine Gandhi's classroom mysteriously run off into the night.
Justine and the rest of the community are left questioning who or what is behind the children's disappearance.
And so what are the takeaways here?
An original horror thriller from a director from a writer director is my favorite thing in all of the movies.
My favorite filmmakers have all more or less worked in the genre.
Jordan Peel has been the example
I have cited most often since we started doing this show
in 2017. He was one of the first guests on the show
and somewhat amusingly Peel reportedly was really pissed
that his company Monkey Paw wasn't able to lock down
the weapon script as a production partner
when it hit that bidding war stage at studios
it did eventually go to Warner Brothers and it makes
sense. You know, this is a movie that is made in his image
it's made in the image of John Carpenter and Alfred Hitchcock
and Polansky and Argento and Park Chan Wook
and Sam Fuller and
On down the line, there's a long strain of movie history.
It's a hyper-taught, tightly structured, engagingly unfolding mystery nightmare.
It's a little weird.
It's a lot funny.
It's very discomforting at times.
Sharp performances and an absolute smashola of an ending.
So here are five things that I really, really liked about this movie.
And I'll try to keep it as vague as I can before getting into spoiler territory so people
can decide whether or not they want to see this movie.
I recommend that you do.
It is one of my favorites.
So anyway, like I said, it was hyped as Magnolia about horror due to this multi-character interconnected structure.
And the structure of the movie is the first thing that I think is really, really impressive.
There are definitely some similarities to PTA's somewhat beloved, somewhat maligned L.A. epic that led to a kind of crash out for him and a reimagination of his career.
But in that movie, there is a sad sack, moustachioed cop played by John C. Riley.
And in this movie, there is a sad sack, moustachioed cop played by Alden Aaron Reich.
and like the somewhat unstable, substance-dependent woman
who disrupts Riley's life in that movie,
there is one in this movie.
Malora Walters is in Magnolia, Julia Garner,
who plays Justine Gandy, the teacher is in this film.
There are some other superficial similarities to Magnolia in this movie.
There's the striking needle drops,
and really this sense of chaos rippling through a community
and then being met by the violent randomness of the universe
as, like, a defining aspect of modern life.
This movie, it feels very much in conversation with that.
But Craigor's movie is two hours.
It's compact, and it's frenzied in a way that Magnolia is not.
It's really a movie about suburban panic that has as much in common with,
I think the Twilight Zone's landmark episode, The Monsters are due on Maple Street,
than like an Altman style ensemble drama.
And the way that each of the seven key character stories are told
is not a tableau about the wide-ranging community of an American city
and the class and the generational divide
that ripples through.
This is a movie about characters
literally colliding into each other,
confronting the rage and fear
that befalls this town
when these kids disappear.
And where each of these characters
story starts and ends
before the next one picks up
is this ingenious trick of screenwriting.
It's never all in the same place
and it allows for both character development
and for the plot to unfurl excitingly,
but kind of at the proper intervals.
You know, each character gets their own chapter
and where we jump into their life at this stage of this crisis is fascinating.
At my screening, there was applause between each chapter section
because of the anticipation that Craigor strikes through each section of the story.
And as the revelations drew close, the connections from the previous chapters,
you could revel in the convergences, right?
You've got to see this movie in a theater with a big crowd
because the sense of like something has just happened and I need to look around
to see how everybody else feels about it really runs deeply into this movie.
So that's the first thing in the structure.
The second thing is the performances.
So just like Barbarian,
this is a movie that is dancing
on a very narrow line
between horror and comedy.
Weapons leans more suspense
than Barbarians kind of tonal whiplash
from section to section,
but by doing the exact same thing
that the recent Naked Gun movie did,
it really does succeed.
So Crager has cast
some serious heavyweight actors,
right, like Julia Garner,
Josh Brolin in a movie
that has ghoulish freakouts,
tonal absurdity,
laugh out loud,
jump scary actions.
Brolin in particular has one of the funniest post-scare laugh lines
I've heard in a movie in some time.
In Barbarian, Craigor weaponized Justin Long's
kind of affable, smarminess, so well.
And he does the same thing here with Benedict Wong
and Austin Abrams, two very funny actors
who you wouldn't call comedians,
but are very good at pushing comedy in a drama.
And then Carrie Christopher plays Alex Lilly.
He's the glue of the story.
He's the one student who remains
after the disappearance of these other children.
and Christopher has a really tough job in this film.
He is proximate to so much of the madness
and has to have a steely reserve
once his role in the story is revealed.
It's an amazing child performance.
And then there's the coup de grace
performance in the movie.
This is an actor who I did not know
was in this movie when I sat down to see it.
They're not featured prominently in the trailer.
It's Amy Madigan,
the longtime actress who you probably know
best from Field of Dreams.
She is a critical figure in the story
and she brings a wild blend.
of elderly fragility and warmth
and a really horrifying menace.
And so I won't say more than that yet.
The third thing is the filmmaking.
So Crager, I think, has really leveled up
in this respect.
The camera in this movie is flying around
and it's always moving.
Quick zooms in and out
or on a dolly following characters,
racing down hallways or dark corridors,
peering around the corners
of whatever terrifying thing is on the other side.
The movie is very slick and graceful.
It kind of glides along with great, great pace.
I'm reluctant to compare the movie to The Shining, for obvious reasons.
I think that's a little unfair to it.
But when you are watching The Shining,
you can feel yourself almost being carried by the camera
to the next unnerving image and idea.
You're on a journey.
And I did feel that same feeling here watching this movie.
There's a near constant sense of what's next.
that the images that Crager creates
combined with the score
that he helps to co-write,
which drives this woozy concern
that is all throughout this movie.
And anytime it starts to shift
into a character drama
about people at a stuck point in their lives,
something really scary
and seemingly random races into the frame,
forcing you to think about this urgent question
of what the hell happened to these kids.
And there are a lot of mechanical choices
that go into making movies like this work,
especially in horror you can feel
directors in post-production
manipulating the audiences with Foley or score
or manufactured scares
and one of the things that I like about weapons
is that the scary moments
and there are three or four times
when you really want to close your eyes or look away
are not really like that
they're constructed of course, they're written
but they're upsetting and tense
in part because there are logical manifestations
of what the characters are going through
and when those characters are attacked
poked by needles, stabbed,
thrashed by oncoming traffic
you can feel the mania
of this world being unleashed and it's all disturbing
and fantastical but also
very grounded
which leads me to themes
this is the fourth thing that I think is really special
about this movie and this is really what differentiates
it from together
weapons is about something
of course it's not an ornate metaphor
however whereas together is
an extended metaphor
this is a child abduction movie
this is a movie that you can watch
purely as a plot exercise, as a quaker, and it is a corker. I'll cite a few movies that are
kind of in the tradition of this when we get into the syllabus at the end of this conversation
that I'm having with myself, but it's really a movie about losing someone you care about
and the sad desperation that it creates in us and the way that it can infect everything,
the way it fosters paranoia and causes you to reach for horrible answers that don't exist,
but start to feel real, and then you have no other place to go.
but to get committed to these answers
that you've invented in your own mind.
You know, I have lost people
very close to me in my life.
And this idea resonates with me really deeply.
And the 2025 movie
that Weapons neatly maps onto
that would make for a nifty double feature
is David Cronenberg's The Shrouds.
They're made in entirely different registers,
but they're about the same feeling
of panic and despair
and awful decision-making in the face of death.
And unlike together,
which takes this question,
quite literal approach to its big idea
in an effort to quote unquote elevate the material
weapons mostly just plays as a crazy movie
that keeps escalating with purpose
without the rising power of an elevator
it is going up
incrementally and getting crazier and crazier and higher
and higher but not too fast
and if you don't want to tangle with Crager's big feelings
inside the movie you really don't have to
it features some indelible horror movie images
gnarly kills great music
music, and last but not least, the ending.
So I have talked in the past about the feeling I get in a movie
that I'm really enjoying and starting to realize that I love
when we get to the final stretch.
So I start leaning forward in my seat
and I start pulling at the fabric in the movie theater chair armrest.
I've talked about this while watching, I know,
the final 15 minutes of whiplash is an example.
I think I talked about that in the rewatchables episode
that I did with Bill some years ago
and the bowling alley sequence
of There Will Be Blood
as an example of this too
when a movie is kind of piercing my skin
and getting into my bloodstream
and Weapons' final 15 minutes
did this for me.
So we're getting into major spoiler territory here
but the final two segments of the film
reveal not just what has happened
to the 17 children who go missing
but who was responsible and how it happened.
This is a very difficult needle to thread
and I suspect some may feel let down
by the hype machine
that I'm helping to power on this podcast.
And I must admit,
an initial feeling of kind of queasiness
as I started piecing together
that, and again, we're in spoiler territory here.
In the construction of the movie,
Aunt Gladys, who comes to stay with Alex
and sort of take over his life
is a demonic witch
who's controlling these children
and her family
and wreaking havoc on this town.
And I thought at first, like, a witch, I don't know, that seems a little pat.
But it's what the movie does with Gladys and what Amy Madigan brings to the character
that quickly shifted my confusion or slight letdown into a kind of fascination.
And then the movie sets you up for this incredible moment of joy.
So Gladys' powers of mind and body control are really fascinatingly rendered in this movie.
They're not just supernatural, but she almost becomes like superhuman.
She starts to feel like Zod from Superman.
in the way that she can kind of presage
another character's actions,
get the upper hand,
and then until she doesn't.
And when she doesn't,
her plan backfires
and our core characters
are kind of relieved
of their hypnosis,
and then the kids
are freed from one version of mind control
and locked into another,
and they begin racing up the stairs
at the end of this movie.
And when the kids started racing up the stairs,
and the moment of a moment of,
recognition of her loss of power
that Madigan expresses
and you know that we are about
to watch something
pretty crazy. I didn't realize how crazy
by the time we got to the end of it, but pretty crazy.
I haven't been that locked in in a movie theater
seat in a long time. I could feel my knees
shaking and my feet tapping
and the hair standing up and as the kids
started crashing through the windows and over the yard
fences and across the backyards of their
town, really to
annihilate their terrorizer.
They tear Gladys, inch from inch,
an extremely gory and hilarious denouement.
I just let out a huge burst of sigh of relief laughter.
You know, this is like an exciting, insane,
gory, funny, euphoric convergence.
And what starts out is this cold,
Fincherian character study morphs into a relationship drama
and then into a detective movie
and then into a stoner comedy
and then into a witch horror
and then into Cannibal Holocaust
and it's just delightful.
It's expertly made
and it is so exciting
to have something like this.
You may be listening to this and thinking like
you're overselling it or you're overhyping it.
I'm just saying for me,
this is my favorite stuff.
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It did make me think of a lot of movies, and I didn't want to do a syllabus as a standalone video.
or on social ahead of time
because I didn't want to give away
not just the reveal about Aunt Gladys
but about all of the
what I perceive to be the myriad influences
and if you listen to my conversation with Crager
a little bit later on you'll hear him
kind of like not only pitch his influences
but kind of joust with some of the ones that I suggested
nevertheless these are some movies
that I think you might find interesting
if you really dug weapons
and can see pieces here and there
the first is the British horror film Village of the Damned from
1960, which is about a micro generation of children who are all conceived and born on
the same day, who all have shocks of blonde hair and who can emit powerful energy from
their bodies.
The movie was later remade by John Carpenter in a less successful remake with Christopher
Reeve.
But the eerie quality, the oddness of little kids and what is really going on with little
kids is really exemplified in this movie, which is kind of schlock.
and has an age
super great
but it's still
kind of fun
as a
you know
an originating text
of mid-century
horror
the next movie
is Rosemary's baby
there is
a lot of
I thought a lot
of
cast in Nevada
and her
insane scheme
with Rosemary
in this movie
in the final stretch
and you'll see
the makeup choices
that are made
for Amy Madigan
kind of
fit with Ruth
Gorman
Gordon's look in that movie quite a bit.
The other one is somewhat obscure.
I don't think Zach was thinking of this movie,
but it is a good fit for a syllabus.
It's the blood on Satan's Claw,
which is a British folk horror from 1971
directed by Pierce Haggard.
And it's about a town
and specifically a group of young children
who are exposed to Satan's remains,
literally his skeleton,
and it causes some devilish changes inside of them.
A little bit of that in this movie as well.
I thought of the Stepford Wives
and Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
the Philip Kaufman version from 1978 quite a bit.
Kregor didn't really,
he said he was not really a body snatcher's guy,
but there is something about body and mind control
and the idea of a prevailing force
that is, overtakes our consciousness
and our physical form
that is a huge part of what transpires
in the second half of weapons
that I think makes a lot of sense.
I also kicked ordinary people to Kregor.
He didn't really vibe with that one,
but ordinary people is a movie about
a family in the suburbs
who don't really know how to deal
with tremendous loss
in the case of that movie
which is Robert Redford's
directorial debut
and a movie
that won best picture
of family
Donald Sutherland
and Mary Tyler Moore
have lost the son
and their other son
played by Tim Hutton
is trying to figure out
how to cope with it
and go forward
and all of them
are kind of at cross purposes
and dealing in different ways
and this is definitely a movie
about you know
Josh Brolin's father character
who makes it his mission
to figure out what happened to his son
but also it becomes a movie
about the dawning realization
of what you didn't say,
how you didn't take care of your family
and communicate with your loved ones
and the way that you felt you should have
when they were here and in front of you.
And there's a particularly scary
but emotionally effective scene
between Brolin in a kind of dream state.
This is a riveting moment in the movie
where he is in this kind of dream state.
He's been sleeping in his son's bed
and gets out of bed
and he thinks he hears his son
I believe his name is Michael
leaving the house
and he follows him out of the house
and he follows him through the neighborhood
and he follows him to another house
and when he gets to another house
he sees this image
of an assault rifle
high in the sky
and it's as close as weapons
gets to a kind of lynchian moment
and it's unexplained
and we're meant to accept the dream logic
of this moment for Brolin's character
and when he goes into the house in which the assault rifle appeared over the roof,
he finds his son sleeping in a bed and he tells him how he feels,
how he, what he wished he had said to him when he was there when he could reach him
and touch him and talk to him and how important he is to him and he's breaking down.
And just as he's breaking down,
a terrifying thing happens in part as a kind of manifestation of the fact that
he's engaging with this like post-traumatic psychosis.
and ordinary people is not a horror movie
by any stretch of the imagination
but it kind of is
kind of taps into that feeling
of deep unimaginable loss
and our inability to resolve the feeling
and just accept it over time
and weapons is a really good example of that too
I thought of some other movies too
that are maybe a little bit more fun
than ordinary people.
The Witches of Eastwick,
the George Miller movie popped into my head
in terms of what witches can do
in terms of casting spells
and controlling minds.
and bodies. There's some really fun stuff in that movie, especially a kind of braver sequence
with Jack Nicholson and a church being controlled by the three witches in that story. I thought of
Carpenter and they live and the idea of living in a society were not as all as it seems. And as
a companion to that, I thought of the Burbs, the Joe Dante movie, which is one of the simultaneously
funniest and scariest what's in that house movies. That movie is a huge movie for my wife and
she grew up loving it. And so we always like to watch the Burbs. And there's definitely a little
bit of the burbs in this.
You know, shortcuts from Robert Altman is one of the signature influences on Paul Thomas
Anderson, and his movie Magnolia owes a great debt, not just to the big sprawling ensemble
movies that Altman made like Mash and, and like Nashville, but also to shortcuts in 93,
the Raymond Carver adaptations about lives of people living in Los Angeles at a certain time
in history and the ways that they connect or do not connect.
I thought of Adam and Goyans
the suite hereafter
the 1997
Russell Banks adaptation
about a community
that has lost
a large number of children
to a terrible accident
and the way that people
don't really know
how to cope with that
and what happens
in the aftermath of that.
I've mentioned Magnolia.
I thought a little bit
of Todd Field's little children
which is an adaptation
of a Tom Perada novel
about the
insecurity and quiet desperation
of Life in the Suburbs,
which is a movie I've always liked
starring Kate Winslet
and Patrick Wilson.
In terms of pure standard-issue horror,
I think James Wan's insidious
is the movie that has the most similar
kind of visual palette
and the way that young children intersect
with this kind of psychotic nether region
feels like there's something going on there too
that's in conversation.
It's obvious that prisoners
the Denny Villeneuve,
Roger Deacon's
child abduction film
that is a little bit of a mystery movie,
a little bit of a movie about grief,
a little bit of a movie
about Hugh Jackman yelling extremely loudly
is a big influence on this movie.
You can hear Zach talk about that
as we get further on.
And then of course, Barbarian,
which I think a lot of people
have probably seen by now
is streaming on Netflix.
If you haven't seen it,
it is a movie that is different
but connected to this movie.
Zach Greger, he loves basements.
That's one thing I'll say.
you know, basements figure into this film as well.
Weapons is really exciting.
And I think you'll get even more excited when you hear me talk with Zach Kregger about it.
So let's do that right now.
Zach Kregor is back.
I'm so excited.
We're here to talk about weapons.
This is very exciting, Zach.
I'm so excited to be here, man.
I really enjoyed our last conversation.
And I was hoping that we'd get to do it again.
And so this is a treat.
So I read that Weapons was written before Barrow.
Barbarian. Is that true? That's not true.
Well, before it was released, though.
That is true.
Yes. So, yeah, I wrote it while I was in the edit.
So can you describe for me the day you started writing it?
Do you remember what happened, what spurred it?
Well, yeah, I mean, it's a, it was a terrible, it was like a terrible, terrible, terrible time for me.
You know, so it's not really a secret. I've talked about it before, but, you know,
Moore, who I was in the widest kids with, died very, very suddenly and terribly. And I was,
you know, um, going through it, you know, and I was just, I was just feeling all the feelings.
I'm still feeling all the feelings. You know, I'm not, I'm not like in the clear. Um,
and so I just sat down to just start writing just to, just to engage with my pain in a way
that was, um, you know, not destructive, but constructive. So I, I wasn't sitting down to write
movie. I was sitting down to just write, to soothe myself, and to just tell myself a story about
who fucking knows, but it was very clear to me as I was writing what I was doing. And so I started
with the first line, you know, girls telling a scary story. And, okay, so she goes to school,
what happened to her teacher? I mean, literally sentence by sentence, I'm discovering the story
as I go, which is how I kind of wrote Barbarian. And, you know, as I got through the cold open,
And these kids left, it just felt really, like, soothing and correct.
And I knew, okay, I've got a teacher.
I've got an angry parent.
I kind of knew, like, that's a good place to kind of aim my beginning.
And then let's just see where it goes.
So in a way, it was like another really fun process of discovery.
And I didn't really have an ending, you know.
And so when you write something like this where you start with the question,
but you don't know the answer, it's a little daunting because you might not
be able to land the plane. And so I probably got about 50 pages in before I kind of figured out
what it happened, why these kids did what they did. And that was a good day because I was like,
oh, I think there's an end to the story that I enjoy. So hopefully other people will.
The ending is arguably the best part. So we'll get to that shortly. Thanks. It's funny how many people
seem to have the opposite attitude. Well, I think there is a fine line between the explanation and the
ending. And I think that I wonder what the take is there. I don't want to, we'll get there
shortly. Did your life change at all after Barbarian?
Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. In what ways? Well, I mean, in ways that I no longer was aspiring to hopefully
one day get my big break and direct a movie, you know, and Barbarian would surprise me and
surprised people. And so it felt like, okay, it looks like I'm going to get to make another movie.
I wasn't prepared for the reception that the script for weapons was going to get.
And so that felt, you know, like very much new territory.
It was like, okay, I get to make a movie and I get to make a movie with actual resources this time.
You know, Barbarian is a $4.5 million movie.
And weapons is about, you know, in the neighborhood of 40.
So it was a big, a big shift.
So, yeah, that was definitely different.
However, I will say this.
The only silver lining to the just awful chapter of Trevor's death was that I was allowed the opportunity, or I don't know if it's an opportunity, but I was basically given the chance to write for the sake of urgency and just a genuine place of creativity as opposed to a place of ambition.
You know, I was not, I was spared from thinking, what's my barbarian follow-up?
That wasn't really available to.
I couldn't think that way.
That's not how I felt.
And so I think that, you know, whatever people tend to enjoy about this story is probably
just because it comes from a place that is not, you know, yeah, it's not ambitious.
Now, I'm not going to, like, pretend like, oh, I'm like such a pure heart creative.
I mean, I definitely had to go back and put my thinking cap on and try and, like, fix it.
You know, my first draft was a total mess.
and I had to think, okay, if this is a movie, how can it work?
So, you know, that stuff is there.
But the impetus for it wasn't like my follow-up, you know?
It's really funny that you say that, though,
because the next thing I wanted to ask you was that there is something very free,
and I wrote down the word ambitious about this movie,
about the, even the idea that you could make a movie like this,
given where you were at that stage of your life,
and that I was curious if, like, making Barbarian,
if you had tried to write a movie like this after that movie came out,
and everybody told you,
all you're so great,
most exciting new voice in horror,
would you have been stricken somehow
or unable to kind of conceptualize something
that doesn't feel kind of stuck
in a lot of the typical modes
of contemporary horror?
I don't know if I'll ever know the answer to that question.
However, I wrote, you know,
right now I'm prepping for a movie
that I also wrote after Barbarian
and long before weapons.
And, you know,
I don't think this one is a product of ambition
and I think it's really fun and careless,
and I mean that in the best way, you know?
And then the movie,
that I hope to do after this, I also wrote before weapons.
And I think it's like maybe the best thing I ever wrote.
So I don't know.
I mean, like, I've been able to kind of psych myself out of thinking
ambitiously for whatever reason.
You know, the thing I wrote now, I was like, I'll never direct this.
So I'm just going to say gives a shit and just like not care.
Which is, by the way, the best attitude.
You know, if you don't care, you're doing it right.
If you care, you know, sometimes I think that's dangerous.
Anyway, yeah, so we'll see.
I don't know.
Let me ask you about that then because one of the things that strikes me about the movie,
the new movie, is the filmmaking feels like a very big step up.
And it feels like more assured.
Thanks.
The sound and the score is really impressive.
The way the camera moves is kind of amazing.
And it does feel like a movie that is written by a guy who's like,
I know exactly how to direct this movie.
So to hear you say, that's the way I felt.
It is.
No, no, no.
But yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because when I'm writing, I'm watching the movie
as I'm writing. And so I
definitely know what I want.
When the script is done, I have the movie
in my head. And so I
feel like, that was the other thing.
It's like, you know, the sale was like
intimidating and crazy, but I
really didn't think, oh, what if
I'm not up to the task?
You know, I have an arrogance in me, and that
arrogance is that I know how to make a movie
like this. And so I was
able to just kind of go for it.
Was it intimidating at all
to have this large budget and these
more famous people in your cast and just a grander scale and in the aftermath of a bidding war
or were you like this is exactly where I want to be no it was where I wanted to be I felt like I had a
I had a clear mission and and I was able to you know get people that could execute the mission you know
I mean I was intimidated to meet Josh Bolin the first time you know for sure and that was a
crazy I really didn't do a good job of my first impression with him um I was supposed to go meet him
I sent him the script.
I was supposed to go meet him in his house.
We're meeting at noon.
It's about 11.
I figure it's take me an hour to get to Malibu from where I live in the east side.
And so it's like, you know, it's 1045 maybe.
I'm getting ready to go.
And I get this phone call from my agents assistant.
And they're like, where are you?
I was like, what do you mean?
They're like, Josh has been waiting for you for 45 minutes.
I'm like, I, dude, I drove like an idiot all like, you know, I tore my way.
And then I, you know, I ring the doorbell.
I'm sweating bullets.
And I don't have a good excuse.
I was building Legos in my house, just like not doing anything.
And he just opened the door and was just like shaking his head.
He's like, what are you, what are you doing, man?
I was just like, hi, please respect me and be in my, you know, trust me.
It was a, it was a gnarly way to start our relationship.
But he's cool, dude.
I mean, it was good.
He kind of brings that energy to the performance, though, in a good way.
So maybe that was helpful.
What, like a disapproving?
Yeah, just like frustrated.
Like, what's your problem, dude?
yeah maybe um tell me a little bit about the filmmaking like i was really struck by how the camera
is constantly moving zooming in and zooming out and it feels like it's on a dolly following people
and it's always going around a corner and looking for something new and that felt very
exciting yeah one of my inspirations for that was son of saul have you seen son of saul you know
and i just think that's yeah i'm very interested in like hyper subjectivity
And so that was something that Larkin, my, Larkinciples, my D.P.
And that's something that we talked about a lot is like, you know, every chapter should be hyper subjective.
And so we should always be in a POV or an OTS and, you know, really just living in the perspective of who we're following.
And so that was, you know, that was kind of a rule that we set for ourselves really early on.
And it just felt like the correct way to tell the story is to just be perched on the shoulder of each protagonist.
And yeah, you know, it was pretty clear early on that that's what we'd do.
Related to that, one thing that I really like about this movie that I think distinguishes it from a lot of its contemporaries is that it is extremely story and character forward.
It doesn't mean it doesn't have themes, but it's not doing a thing that I think you find in a lot of horror where it's sort of like, let's announce the theme and then hold your hand through the theme of the movie all the way through.
When you get to the end of this movie, you can think about that.
is that something that comes naturally? Is that something you
intellectualize? Or is it just
you're doing what you want to do and telling the story
you want to tell? Well, I really
try not to intellectualize anything, really, when I'm writing. So no,
I mean, honestly, this is like, it started
with me kind of obsessing over how I felt about Trevor. And then
the end of it is me kind of obsessing over
my dad. And I don't know how those
two things connect, but somehow to me they did. And so
it's really, it's a very personal movie. I
don't have a statement. The movie's not political.
me, it's a completely introverted kind of diary entry. So, yeah, I don't even know if I just
answered your question. No, you did, you did. Okay, cool. I heard you say something funny as well
that the way that the kids are running, leaving their homes is something you did just because
you thought it looked cool and didn't have some like broad Easter egg rationalization to it.
No, there's no, yeah, there's no meaning there. But it does, it does to me, just invites a little
more kind of speculation, you know? It's like, if they just ran out normally, it'd be like,
oh, that's weird. But if they all run out with a kind of bizarre posture, then it's like,
okay, something, there's another dimension at work here, and I don't know what it is. And so it just,
it just felt provocative. When you're pursuing ideas like this that are, you know, genre focused
in a little left field, like, are you, do you have sounding boards? Do you have people that you're
sending this to or saying, like, what if I did this? Or is it, is it very private? It's pretty private.
I got stuck on weapons early on and I did have like a kind of a brainstorm session with a buddy
in mine who helped me kind of unstick. So that was, you know, that was good. But I don't do that
too much. I'm not, I'm definitely not one of those like, let's go to dinner so I can pitch you
my movie kind of guys. Okay. Okay. I'm right in seclusion a little bit more. Did you rehearse
with the cast? Um, no. I mean, one scene, the bar scene with Alden and Julia, we took a weekend and
We ran that, like, at my house in Atlanta for just a couple of hours, you know.
But we were already in the middle of production.
So, no, I'm definitely not a big rehearsal guy.
Not for any reason.
I don't have anything against rehearsal, but, you know, schedules being what they are.
People are flying in midway through, and it just wasn't really available.
We did a table read over Zoom, and that was kind of like the rehearsal, honestly,
which is like I don't love doing a table read over Zoom.
That's pretty awful.
But so, yeah, no, not so much.
were you very tight to the script during the making or was there
really tight to the script yeah I think there's a couple of ad libs I don't want to
pretend there's none but you know but generally it's it's pretty much verbatim
yeah I was curious about that because the movie is so tightly constructed
and I was wondering how much of what you filmed is everything that you filmed in the movie
because of the way that the narrative unfurals
no there's a scene where Alden goes to a doctor and gets his hand checked out
and I do that just the pacing didn't work there's a scene
where James the junkie goes to a drug dealer
to try and sell his little, like, gizmo that he stole,
and he gets, like, punched in the face
and, like, kicked out,
which is a really fun scene,
but it just felt like we've got to move, you know?
And so they were pacing considerations,
but only those, too, I think.
How many times can Austin Abrams get punched in one movie,
I guess, is a question I guess.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Question about writing scare scenes.
So when you're writing one,
and there are a few really good ones in this movie,
are you writing what,
scares you or what you think scares other people?
I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
It must be what scares me. I mean, if there's, I'll tell you this, I'm not sitting on
something that's terrifying to me that I wouldn't dare put in a movie.
You know, if I have access to anything scary, believe me, I'm going to try and capitalize
on it. So I think it's probably both.
Well, I ask because there are some recurring, the fear of being poked is something that
pops up a lot in this movie.
Let me think about that.
What do you mean?
Well, needles.
I mean, obviously we have the needles and the forks.
Sharp's just as sharp sticks piercing the finger.
Yeah.
This idea of like being penetrated by something sharp and blood appearing.
And then that being a kind of recurring image in this movie is unmistakable.
I'm not the first horror movie to utilize being stabbed with things.
You're zooming in right on bleeding fingers a few times in this movie, you know?
Yeah, fair, fair.
Is there, there's not any like Freudian subtext there to someone getting underneath.
They're very well made be, Sean, but I haven't yet identified it.
Well, there's like a second layer to that, too, which the movie literalizes, and I thought was really interesting, which is kind of the fear of infection.
You know, at one point, Paul asks about...
And some of that is sprinkled in on purpose, you know, yeah.
Yeah, like, even just got the parasites on TV, and she's teaching a lesson on...
I mean, yeah, I'm taking a page out of every movie ever made where someone's teaching a class, you know, and they have to kind of explain the subtexts of the movie.
in the lesson. So I'm guilty
in that. I think it works really well. And I don't know if I would
have glommed on to that if I didn't get a chance to see
a second time. So it's not. Have you seen it twice?
I did. I did. I did.
Well, I kind of snuck into the premiere and then I saw
a press screening. Oh, you were at the premiere? Yeah,
it was really fun. It was
that crowd was cool. That was a great
to the movie. I haven't been to enough
to know if our premiere crowds just kind of like, you know,
fish in a barrel. I think probably
yes. Yeah, they are. Everyone's full of shit
and they're like, this is my best friend's movie. But
yeah the applause at the chapter breaks was incredibly cool and just made the movie that was surprising feel fun in a way that isn't yeah anyway um how about the way that comedy leaks into the movie we did talk about this when we talked about barbarian and using you know your previous life as a creative person and making it fit this is different this definitely leans more classic suspense horror but there are a couple of laugh moments brolin in the bed is like one of the hardest moments i've laughed in movies in years rolling in the bed is a line i've
putting because I thought it was funny. Beyond that, I got to be honest with you, because I've
been hearing this a lot lately. It's like, oh, you know, so much comedy in this. It's such a
comedy. And I was a little like, is it really? I don't, I don't think of this as being a funny
movie. That brolin in the bedline, sure. I can't really think of another one where I was like,
this will be funny. You know, like, maybe Austin, when he's on the phone, calling about the kids
and seeing the wanted poster. To me, I get that's funny. But I'm surprised people are, are,
taken by the, and I don't know, I don't know what I'm saying.
I think it's because you have this combination of actors too, like Austin, like June,
um, even like Benedict Wong, who are like pretty funny.
You know, they're not, they're not comedians, but who are kind of naturally funny.
And so they feel comfortable riffing in an otherwise extremely tense moment in a movie.
You know, absolutely. And I do realize, you know, when I'm casting, I have to have people that
are funny. Even Josh, Josh is very, very funny. And,
Alden is like, dude, Hill Caesar, Alden is like the funniest person in the world.
So like, you know, I definitely, that is a requisite for someone I want to work with is they have to have timing, you know.
But to me, it's like, I hope it's funny in like a, I'm not comparing myself to Alexander Payne, but that sort of like kind of dry humor that can like bloom a little bit here and there.
But it's always a little funny.
It's kind of what I hope I'm able to do.
You know, that's what I'm always kind of aiming for.
But I don't know if I'm successful.
seeing the movie at the premiere,
I did not know Amy Madigan was in this movie before I saw it.
And you brought her on stage.
And did you say you're my angel?
You used a very warm descriptor of her.
No, I said, my dream come true.
My dream come true.
That's what it was.
Which is true.
And she's amazing and obviously very important to this movie.
But why did you say my dream come true to her?
And how did she come to be in the movie?
You know, that part is so...
It's just such a balancing act.
You need somebody who can be completely abulient and spunky and disarming and kind of inviting in a repulsive way.
And that's a tough one who also has like a lethal, old reptilian core that is readily accessible.
And, you know, you watch Amy in Field of Dreams and you get, you get side A.
and then you watch her in like Gone Baby Gone or Carnival and you get Side B.
And it's like, and so I met with her again in Malibu.
I guess everyone's in fucking Malibu.
I drove out and had lunch with her at this restaurant and I was driving out there.
And I kind of knew I was like, God, Amy is, I just knew like she was going to be right for
this part.
But I have a habit of like offering people roles very impulsively.
And I was like, don't offer her the part, Zach.
Like, you know, leave the lunch.
tell her you're still in the process and you know you'll get back to her like you know be cool and
dude i'm telling you before the lunch hit the table i was like only you could play this part you
have to play this part you know because she just sitting there and looking at her and kind of
just studying her i was just like this is it like this is the person like she has everything i need
and she's so cool and she liked the role and she got it and i was just like there's nobody else
so i just lucked out you know that that's a hard role you write it and you're like i hope there's a
human being that can do this and then
you get Amy Madigan and you're like, thank you
God. You can see the movie going
belly up if it's the wrong person because
could you imagine? Yeah, yeah.
I think and that's kind of related to what
I assume you're hearing a little bit of the feedback
on and the movie is really interesting because
the mystery of it and the fact
that Josh's section is very much like
a detective story. You've got a like a
cop on the case. There are all of these elements
that are very
Finchirian thriller through the first
hour or so. And then it does, it does
take a hard, hard turn into
metaphysical, supernatural
horror movie stuff.
And it feels like, I'm curious if you feel like you are
intentionally wrong footing the audience with the exception
of a handful of the scares, and maybe that's what
some of the reaction you're getting, because the
conclusion of the movie is like absolute thrill a minute
ripping the cushion out of your movie theater
seat.
But you have to get on board with the big choice you make to
explain what is going on.
I didn't set out to wrong foot the audience.
I just wrote the movie that just felt like what the movie wanted to be.
So I'm not doing it on purpose.
I'm aware that Barbarian is a very divisive movie.
And I think that the main criticism that I hear again and again is like, you know,
first half great, second half stupid, you know, I didn't sign up for that.
That was my review.
Yeah.
Yeah, I heard you.
So I think I am sensitive to that
But I also am like
You know, whatever
Look, all I want to do is write my favorite movie
And make my favorite movie
And this is what I like
So, you know, I can't
I can't really care about anything other than
What am I going to sleep soundly having made?
So I don't know, this is it
I have a bad habit as a movie dork
Of telling people what movies they should watch
After they've seen a new movie, you know, like, oh
I like pulling from this
I think that's really, that's fun
do you have what do you say
well for this one I you know
I'll pull on my list if you want there's like a bunch
yeah dude do it do it do it okay
I'll throw out the ones that I would
I would lob out there and they're so obvious
they're the lowest hanging fruit and it's like
not creative that I would say
magnolia hereditary
prisoners
picnic at hanging rock
the son of Saul
just visually
and you know Pulp Fiction I never thought about
Pulp Fiction. Then everybody is saying, it's got a lot of Pulp Fiction. I'm like, you know what,
I would be the biggest liar in the world if I didn't say Pulp Fiction changed my life when it came
out. So that's got to be baked in there. And then I heard you say this because people were
telling me to listen to your bidding episode, which I did. And when you said the Needful Things
trailer, I was like, dude, that is in there because I had the same feelings. When I saw the
Needful Things commercial on TV, I was like, that's the movie for me. I am all in. And the
imagination, the movie I imagined
was not the movie I got
but the movie I imagined. But the movie I imagined when I saw that
trailer was just like a very special
movie. And so maybe that
the promise of that trailer
seared something into me that I
always wanted. And I think
it could be some
sort of subconscious, you know, aim
toward that. That's a good one. I mean, I had a few of those
movies on the list, obviously. Magnolia for sure because people, the
trades have just been pushing the magnolia but
And that came from me, by the way, they asked me, like,
how would you like us to describe this tonally in the trades?
And I said hereditary meets magnolia.
So I'm culpable of that.
That's interesting because I do feel like there is certainly the multi-character kind of some of the convergence of magnolia.
But, I don't know, your movie feels much.
Well, the cold open is a direct homage to the magnolia cold open.
And the mustache that Aldenar and Reich wears is literally, we know, I mean, literally, we went to the, whatever, I'm just going to make a bad joke.
Listen, I mean, trust me, I know.
somebody who lived with Magnolia deeply in 1999.
I get it.
And even like Julia being a little bit like Malora Walters in some ways and they're kind of
fucked up relationship.
I get all that.
I didn't think about that.
I didn't.
Yes.
I mean, totally.
There's totally some of that.
But I just meant like that's, your movie is a suburbs movie.
Magnolia is a city movie.
Yeah, for sure.
And there is like a different energy to those things.
But I'm telling you about your own movie.
I wrote down Rosemary's baby.
That's definitely feels like some, some Rosemary's baby in it.
Okay.
Not in, in Gladys.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fun.
Oh, yeah.
And, of course, of course, obviously, yeah.
I mean, all the Body Snatchers movies.
Okay.
Those aren't big for me.
So maybe.
I'm going to take your word on that.
Okay.
I just don't loom large in my...
Ordinary people?
Did you ever see that?
You know what?
Long, long, long time ago.
I mean...
It's not a big one for me.
Suburban families struggling to cope with loss and looking for answers that don't exist is...
Sounds fun.
It's a blast.
Best picture winner.
Do you ever see The Witches of Eastwick?
Yes, yes, I did.
Again, that's not a big one for me.
Although I do love George Miller, so you'd think I would have given it more time.
You don't have to say you like it, just something that occurred to me.
Again, this is my bad habit.
Sorry, I wasn't clear on the rules of this.
What about Little Children?
Yeah, I saw it when it came out.
I saw in the theater.
I thought it was cool.
I haven't seen it since.
Okay, look at you, just not enjoying all the movies that I thought.
No, I love, dude.
It doesn't mean I don't like them.
You know, there are some movies that, like, you know, matter in a weird way.
And there's others that you really like, but they don't.
What is it with you in basements?
Oh, I don't know.
They're just fun.
It's easy.
It's, dude, it's just easy.
I look, Barbarian, I was very nervous about having a basement scene in this movie because of Barbarian.
I'm like, that's where the kids were.
Oh, shit, major spoiler.
Sorry, I will have spoiled already by this episode.
Okay, cool.
But that's just like, you know, I got.
James in the house and I was like, dude, this is the only move. And honestly, Sean, like,
I really mean this and I don't mean to sound obnoxious when I say it, but I try so hard to
just turn my brain off when I'm writing completely and to just really be absent from the,
from the creative process. So I just let it, I let it be what it is. And so that's what it was.
Where does this movie take place? Maybrook, Pennsylvania, which is where I kind of thought
prisoners took place in Pennsylvania. I found out later. I think prisoners was supposed to take
place in Maine.
Okay.
I'm not sure.
But, you know, I was thinking about, you know, Deacon's photography and I was just thinking
a prisoner is just visually so phenomenal.
And it's weird because, you know, we're shooting in Atlanta.
And I was just like, well, I'm never going to find the prisoner's neighborhood in Atlanta.
You know, I want to shoot this up in, you know, I want to shoot in Vancouver or, you know,
Seattle or some of Oregon.
And then I found out they shot prisoners in Atlanta.
And I went to that neighborhood.
It actually wasn't quite right for what we needed.
So, you know, it's funny, you know, I was like the dog that caught the mail truck there, and I realized, no, it's not, that's not the right vibe.
I wouldn't, I don't know, is it communicated that's Pennsylvania? Maybe I just missed that when I was watching the movie.
I mean, no, you wouldn't know. It's like the license plate, say Pennsylvania. I think his, like, his badge says Pennsylvania or something like that.
Is it present day? Yeah. Ring cans, you know.
Right. Of course. What was, when you were making the movie, was there anything that didn't work or you couldn't make?
happen that you had conceived of?
Great question.
No.
Oddly, no.
In fact, you know, the final, the Danuma, you know, with the final chase for the kids, you know, running around.
So in the scripts, that was actually just Gladys runs outside.
They jump out the window.
They get her in the front yard.
And then as we were in prep, I was like, I just, I was like, you know what, dude?
Like, I think that if we go raising Arizona with this, you know, we go full point break.
Like, it's going to really, people are going to walk out with a smile.
And that was not a cool conversation to spring on your line producer and everybody.
Like, I think we're going to need four more days, you know, and five more locations.
And we're going to destroy houses that we've got to find.
And just please let me do this.
But to everyone's credit, nobody was like giving me the hard pushback.
Everyone's just kind of like, this is going to hurt, but we're going to make it work.
And thank God we did.
I honestly think that it was, I think it changed the movie.
I mean, two things about that.
I do want to hear you talk about it a little bit because it is absolutely thrilling.
However, you said you're not writing a lot of laugh lines, but there's literally a cutaway to a guy mowing a lawn and the kids run through the yard.
Obviously, I knew that was going to be funny.
That's a great, that's a great joke moment.
You know, you said raising Arizona.
And I shot that scene twice.
I shot that scene twice.
What do you mean?
Because the first time I shot it with a guy, it just wasn't coming together.
And I was not happy with how it worked.
And then my boom-op, who's like this metal head, Marty.
What's up, Marty?
It's like, you know, sleeve tattoos and like metal.
and I was, but I could just, I was like, if I put a flannel shirt on this guy, he's going to look right, you know, he's going to look like somebody out of honey I shrunk the kids. And I was like, let's, I was like, can I just shoot that again with Marty? And again, they were like, this is, come on, Zach, but they let me. And I'm glad we did because, you know, Marty, my boom up was definitely the right dude for that. I mean, it's a great, very small break in an otherwise, very, very exciting final stretch of the movie. You know, I noticed you have a another, a credit on the score.
and yeah, yeah, I think, I listened to the score yesterday while preparing for this, like a psycho.
It's a very weird thing to just listen to standalone. Not exactly the most melodic thing in the world,
but it is like very, very involving and effective. And I thought maybe you could tell me a little
bit about one, what you do in that process and what you were thinking with, with your collaborators.
So my collaborators are my two like childhood best friends, Ryan and Hayes Holiday, their brothers.
I've been in a band with them forever. Like we, you know, we're in a band.
in college and we got back together
and when they moved out to LA
and we played a lot of music together.
We share a musical mind
and they're wildly talented guys.
They're way more talented than me.
But what I know about those guys
is that I can communicate like psychically with them
what I want.
And so, you know, this process was
I kind of know what the music should be
for every scene and with them
I can just be like, dude,
take that little pan thing
that, you know, we all worship and, like, sprinkle in a little bit of this weird song that we've
all heard before. And it should be kind of like, and they can just do it. They can just, like,
do what I want, what I have in my head. And so some of the songs in there, I did write and perform
myself. And some of the songs they wrote and performed all themselves. And then some of the
songs are just kind of like, all three of us just kind of like jamming together. And I'm very
happy with it. You know, I think it's a, it's a cool score. It's what I wanted, you know.
And so, yeah. And I'm going to use those guys again and again, because,
I think they're just, they're so brilliant.
And, yeah, I got lucky.
It's really effective.
I've also had at least two people now say to me when we were talking about the movie,
as soon as Beware of Darkness hit, I knew that I was going to be, I was going to love this,
like that there is like a tone set.
There's only a handful of needle drops in the movie, but can you just talk about how you made those choices?
Well, as I was writing, I was listening to some music and Beware of Darkness came on when I was
like in the writing process, you know, so I, you know, I vomit 70 pages out in L.A.
right that are a mess and then I go to my manager's house who lives in the woods in the East Coast
and I just am alone for about three weeks and I don't do anything but wake up right eat right
sleep that's it so in that process I was over there and I was listening to Beware of Darkness
and I was like this is it it was just like it was just like a bolt from the blue I was like there's
no ambiguity this is the this is the song that will play in the opening montage that song
cost I can't I'm not going to tell you but it hurt it real we that hurt to get that song
in this movie. But I think it's worth it. And then we have Percy Sledge and we have a handsome
family song. I really like that that handsome family song is like a song that has just been like
really important to me for a long time. Yeah, I like that the music is melancholy in this.
You know, I don't want the movie to be melancholy, but I like that there is like a blue
undertone to everything. It feels right. You're making a Resident Evil movie.
Yeah. How are you feeling about that? Pretty pumped.
it's going to be not at all like barbarian and weapons.
It's going to be just a rock'em-sockham.
It's for me to play.
It's for me to turn my brain off and just make like a Evil Dead 2, like get crazy with the camera.
Austin Abrams who played James is going to be my guy.
So it's just Austin is the movie.
I love all.
We had an amazing thing together.
And I think it's a weird, fun, just like wild story.
And, yeah, it's not going to, it's not doing any of this, like, shifting and reinventing itself.
It's like, this movie follows a person from point A to point B.
And it's, so it's weird in that way that it's just like a real-time flip journey where you just go deeper and deeper into the depths of hell.
And it's really like the love letter to the games, because I love those games.
And so it's kind of my homage to them.
Indulge me for one second on this.
one of my favorite things about your first two movies
is that they are exactly what I am looking for at the movies
which is original
intoxicating suspense
with great performances and laughs
and pretty much something that is indebted to a lot
but unlike anything I've ever seen before
that's my number of- Oh my God
well that's the nicest thing I've heard in this process
so thank you very much
and it is something that I really care about
and that I really dig.
It's literally why I'm doing the show.
Resident Evil is IP, and we're in the IP era.
Sure.
Okay, fair.
However.
And balance that.
Like, help me understand it.
Yeah, yeah.
Resident Evil of IP.
I've never seen a Resident Evil movie.
Oh, wow.
I've never seen one.
And I played the games obsessively.
This is a story that comes from a healthy, creative place.
This is a story that I would have wanted to write,
whether I got Resident Evil.
IP or not. I just so happen to be able to, you know, to have these Resident Evil people be down.
And so I get to play in their sandbox and I'm honored to and I'm stoked that I get to tell a
story that I actually love. I don't need to do this. You know, I'm in a healthy enough place
where I can go make a different original movie and it's fine. I'm doing it because I think this
movie's going to be fucking awesome. And so, you know, I get that it's IP and I get that there's
people who are going to be like, why? And I hope that, my hope is that when you see Resident Evil,
you'd be like, no, I get it. Dude, that was awesome. You have my trust. I'm not questioning you.
It is curious to me, though, because I think there is an urge for when someone emerges in the way
that you have in the last few years. We're kind of like, keep going, keep pushing, keep forcing studios
to keep making movies like weapons, you know? And I tell you this right after Resident Evil.
I mean, I'm working right now. I have a script that I was alluding to. It's a sci-fi thing. It's my
favorite thing. And I'm, I'm probably going to hit the ground running right after Resident
Evil and go, go get into that, you know? And so I'm definitely like, I have, I have more
original things in me, you know, but I consider Resident Evil an original thing. And I think you'll,
I think you will too when you see it. It's not, you know, so, um, yeah, I don't know what else
to say, you have my trust. I'm just, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, just something that is,
I don't think, I'm talking to you, but I'm also talking to, to the haters, imaginary,
haters out there so yeah uh Zach we end
every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great
thing they have seen
you're traveling you're around the world
any plane movies what do you what do you got
oh man I mean and I've seen so much great stuff lately
let me hang on I want to give you such a good answer but I'm worried that I'm
gonna just like blow this because I didn't think about this in advance
um oh you know I really enjoyed the the Jaws 50 year
anniversary Jaws doc I thought that was like so fun you
what I love, dude, I loved how vulnerable he was about being traumatized by that process and how he had to go and, like, cry for a while and, like, heal and he's still, it's still a sore subject. And it just, I was so nourished by that because it's like, dude, I really went through the ringer making weapons. You know, there was, there was, there, I had a collapse, honestly, near the end. I had to, I really did, like, my body kind of failed on me. I was exhausted. We were doing six, eight weeks, double shifts. Me and Larkin were shooting with the crew and then we'd wrap the crew and then shoot with second unit into the end. I had to, I had to, I had to, I really did,
a night, six-day waits, dude. And I, at a certain point, I just kind of, like, I crashed,
like, in a weird way that I've never crashed before, and it was hard. And I had really
awful dreams about being on set for, like, almost a month after, and it was, it was gnarly.
And to hear somebody have that, and to know that, like, this guy had a truly miserable
time making a movie, and yet he made arguably what many people would call the greatest movie
ever made. Not the greatest film ever made to be, you know, but the greatest movie ever made.
I'm not the first person to make that distinction.
But, you know, it doesn't, you know, you can make something really wonderful and suffer all the way through.
And you don't have to suffer all the way through.
I don't think that's a prerequisite.
But I was just really encouraged that, like, you know, the process is the process and the result is separate.
And I think that was just really cool to hear from a master.
I really like that.
You did remind me of one last thing I wanted to ask you about because all the crazy physical media heads are like, when will I get the barbarian 4K?
I joined their chorus and I have banged the drum and made phone calls and tried my best to get some sort of physical media and I'm not making headway and it kind of bumps me out.
I only ask because part of the relationship that we built with Jaws obviously was not just watching it at home, but like the special features and stuff and the documentaries and all the stuff that was attached to learning about the making of that movie, your movies, it would be fun to watch and learn and see the things that you did in your movie.
too. There's a mythologizing that is kind of important when you get to a certain stage as a
filmmaker. Dude, I mean, I love watching the making of sometimes as much as watching the movie.
I bought the Panic Room DVD and I watched all three of them. And I think those things are
amazing. I like the prep and the post and the whole deal. I like watching David Fincher
talk about how we're going to open a floor safe for 17 minutes. You know, it's like, to me,
that's great. So I, you know, selfishly, I
want people to watch me boss other people around and look cool. You know what I mean? But
first of all, we don't have any footage like that in Barbarian because nobody cared to
know. But we did do special features. Those special features are available on the iTunes
purchase. So there's a commentary and there's the featurette and stuff like that. But
I hear you, man. I would love it to be physical. Zach, you're the best. Congrats on weapons.
This is very exciting. You're the best. John, you don't know how important it is to me to do this
with you. It means a lot to me. I really
love your mind, and
I really love what you're doing. So
thanks for having me. The same goes
2X for me. Thanks, man. Good luck with weapons,
dude. Cheers.
Thanks to Zach Kregor.
Thank you to Brian Raftery.
Please stay tuned on this
feed for Mission Accomplished. It's an awesome
show, and I know if you love movies and stories
about making of movies and how they fit into
the culture at large here in this country and abroad,
You will find that story fascinating.
Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode.
I wanted to send a special shout out to Sam Birdwistle,
who's been helping us with research and guiding us through the 25 for 25 project this summer.
He's been a great help.
Thank you to Sam.
And we are taking a break, as I said on the show, for the next few weeks.
I'm really excited to be taking a break.
I'm probably going to have a slightly healthier relationship to watching movies
and thinking about movies over that break.
I'm really fired up, though, to get back and get out to the fall festival season.
I really want to have a really great fourth quarter on the show with Amanda.
And I'm pumped about a couple of the movies I've already seen that I can't talk about yet.
And a couple of the movies that I will be seeing in the fall.
And it's going to be PTA September when we get back too, man.
So just don't forget.
Great things ahead.
Have a great summer.
Thank you, as always, for listening and watching this show.
It means a lot to us.
We'll see you again soon.
You know,