After three years,Zach Creggerfollowed up his horror debut,Barbarian, with a new film meant to entice and terrify its audience.Weaponshit theaters on August 8, which had a surprising connection to someone very close to the filmmaker. On July 05, 2025, Cregger’s long-time collaborator and close friend,Trevor Moore, died suddenly. Now, four years after the fact, Cregger’s method of grief was released close to the anniversary of Moore’s death. TheWeaponsdirector credited the film with helping in his grieving process, as he told Polygon.
“I’m still digesting it. It still feels like it just happened. You just have all this emotion, and it’s better for me to just start writing characters that are feeling the emotions I’m feeling and letting them go kind of crazy and bounce off each other and do everything I can’t do. It feels good. It was cathartic.”
Before contributing to the horror scene, Cregger and Moore were known for their contribution to the comedy sketch group, The Whitest Kids U’Know. Comedy and horror always seem to go hand in hand and have become a calling card for Cregger. He effortlessly combined humor and horror inBarbarian, andWeaponshas followed suit.
‘Weapons’ Was a Labor of Love
When Zach Cregger sat down to writeWeapons, he was in a different headspace than forBarbarian. Cregger wrote his first movie, starting with a scene that had every red flag he could think of.Barbarianprogressed just asWeaponsprogressed. The director started writingWeaponswith no knowledge of where it would end up. He first thought of a classroom empty of children, unsure of what had happened to them. Then he addedJosh Brolin’s character of an angry father, demanding answers, and a school teacher whose entire classroom went missing.
Cregger stated that when he started writing the film, he had no idea what the reason was why the children went missing, but by the time he reached the midpoint, it came to him. This was part of his grieving process, allowing characters to feel these darker emotions and act on them while he supervised as the writer. Cregger had many influences, even the most unlikely. He cited thatPaul Thomas Anderson’sfilmMagnoliainspired early sequences of the film, as well as many different perspectives throughout. Through it all, however, is the unquestionable feeling of loss.Weaponswasn’t just a follow-up toBarbarianbut a natural progression. Fans can watch Cregger’s second feature film in theaters starting August 8.
