A new movie set to hit theaters this week centers on chaos unravelling in a fictional small town in Illinois, and the location is just as integral to the plot as any of its main characters. <\/p>\n
“Weapons” is set in the fictional town of Maybrook, Illinois. The characterizations of the town feel hyper realistic, a core tenet to the movie\u2019s ability to seamlessly blend humor and horror.<\/p>\n
The film follows Zach Cregger\u2019s 2022 solo directorial debut \u201cBarbarians,\u201d the widely celebrated genre-bending horror. This time, the young director bends even more, spinning a town into chaos when all children but one from the same classroom mysteriously vanish, leaving a trail of questions in their place.<\/p>\n
The Warner Bros. release hits theaters Friday and is as creepy as it is hilarious \u2014 a delicate balance that required Cregger to strip any intentionality behind his humor, he told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the humor is coming from an authentic reaction that a character\u2019s having, then it works,\u201d Cregger said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of jokes that didn\u2019t make it into the movie that I thought were going to be so funny. And then we did a test screening, and nobody laughed and I\u2019m like, OK, it\u2019s gotta go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paranoia runs deep in the film. The town’s heartbroken parents are represented by Josh Brolin\u2019s character, Archer, whose son was among the missing. The students\u2019 teacher, played by Julia Garner, is determined to solve the mystery, despite parents blaming her for the disappearances.<\/p>\n
The humor here comes naturally, Cregger said, as characters navigate the absurd events happening around them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not playing for the laugh, otherwise you lose the laugh,\u201d said Brolin, whose character stumbles through his grief, a state ripe for what he called genuine and \u201cembarrassingly funny\u201d moments.<\/p>\n
Maybrook\u2019s unrest puts a mirror up to society<\/p>\n
If 17 kids up and ran out of their homes at 2:17 a.m. one morning with no trace, what would a community do? That question drove \u201cWeapons,\u201d painting a picture of a town left reeling by the mystery.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny because this isn\u2019t even like a proper horror film,\u201d Garner said. \u201cIt has comedic elements and has horror elements, but it\u2019s kind of its own genre, in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The town\u2019s reactions to tragedy and shock was intentionally meant to feel oddly realistic, Cregger said. Parents are outraged, storming into town halls and angrily demanding answers from the police, the school and, most pointedly, the students\u2019 teacher. Yet, when Garner\u2019s character is attacked in broad daylight, bystanders and store owners hardly bat an eye, a level of indifference that Cregger said is just as realistic as the parental outrage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely have a, \u2018Whoa, not my problem,\u2019 kind of a thing when chaos is occurring, because we see it so much on TV that I think we\u2019re able to just kind of tune it out, even when it\u2019s happening in front of us,\u201d Cregger said. \u201cLiving in America, I\u2019ve seen crazy things happen with my own eyes right in front of me, and I\u2019ve just kept walking for better or worse, so I don\u2019t know, it feels real.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWeapons\u201d relies on imperfect characters<\/p>\n
Brolin \u2014 who’s found wide-reaching success across Hollywood, from the 1985 classic, \u201cThe Goonies,\u201d to the Marvel universe \u2014 initially hesitated when approached for the film. As a father of four, facing his worst nightmare \u2014 losing his children \u2014 was \u201cnot something I want to show up to work for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But \u201cWeapons\u201d lends the characters a layer of depth that allowed horror, a genre he said is typically treated as cosmetic, to suddenly have \u201cdepth, and humor and absurdity,\u201d which, coupled with his own adult daughter\u2019s love of \u201cBarbarian,\u201d was enough to convince him to sign on.<\/p>\n
The movie subtly mocks suburban life, as goriness and horror occur under the sights of nosy neighbors, corrupt police departments and struggling relationships.<\/p>\n
Each character that drives the plot forward is just as flawed as they are victims of tragedy. Gandy, the schoolteacher, is harassed by parents for her missing students, but is secretly battling alcoholism. Archer, the heartbroken father, is failing in his job and his marriage as he navigates his son\u2019s absence. Paul Morgan, played by Alden Ehrenreich, is a local beat police officer with secrets of his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery character is perceived in a certain way and then every character breaks,\u201d Brolin said. \u201cIt all comes down to this very base thing: What if you lost the thing that you value the most? How do you deal?\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ehrenreich, who\u2019s found success in dramas, notably as a young Han Solo, \u201cWeapons\u201d offered a different pace, but its horror wasn\u2019t what drew him in. Rather, he was captivated by the film\u2019s depth and weirdness. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe weird resonance, the weird opening voice-over, the way it was written and the kind of emotional brokenness of these characters and the depth that I felt was in the writing, that was as deep as any drama I\u2019ve read in years,\u201d Ehrenreich said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe voice of M3GAN, Jenna Davis, dishes on “M3GAN 2.0,” and opens up about how she fights her IRL fear of horror movies.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new movie set to hit theaters this week centers on chaos unravelling in a fictional small town…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-144095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115025058459144710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}