Associated Press
[Source: AP]
If there’s one thing Zach Cregger learned while writing and directing his upcoming horror movie “Weapons,” it’s that the best laughs won’t come from the jokes he writes.
The film follows Cregger’s 2022 solo directorial debut “Barbarians,” 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.
The Warner Bros. release hits theaters Friday and is as creepy as it is hilarious — a delicate balance that required Cregger to strip any intentionality behind his humor, he told The Associated Press.
“If the humor is coming from an authentic reaction that a character’s having, then it works,” Cregger said. “There’s a lot of jokes that didn’t 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’m like, OK, it’s gotta go.”
Paranoia runs deep in the film. The town’s heartbroken parents are represented by Josh Brolin’s character, Archer, whose son was among the missing. The students’ teacher, played by Julia Garner, is determined to solve the mystery, despite parents blaming her for the disappearances.
The humor here comes naturally, Cregger said, as characters navigate the absurd events happening around them.
“You’re not playing for the laugh, otherwise you lose the laugh,” said Brolin, whose character stumbles through his grief, a state ripe for what he called genuine and “embarrassingly funny” moments.
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