Seventeen children from the same classroom mysteriously run out of their homes towards an unknown target in the middle of the night, all going missing with no reason why. That is the arresting premise of Weapons, releasing in cinemas today. Zach Cregger, who has written, produced and directed the film — and gave us the equally intriguing horror fest Barbarian on debut three years ago — talks about his latest venture.

Is there a moment where the idea that would become Weapons began?

One of my best friends unexpectedly died. I was in such a severe, painful place that I was able to write just out of pure need, without any idea of what it was going to be.

When I’m writing, I have a rule for myself — I don’t want to know what’s going to happen at all. I just start. I sat down to write what would become this movie, and the first thing I type is this little girl telling a story and these kids who go running out of the house. And I’m thinking as I’m writing: ‘This is cool. I hope I figure this out.’ I didn’t figure it out until it was time in the script to answer that question. Basically, I’m writing on a tightrope, hoping that it is revealed to me. Luckily, in this case, it was. I was just writing to get this feeling out, and it ended up turning into Weapons.

So, what really is Weapons?

The central question that this movie asks is: ‘Why did one classroom of kids decide, on the same night at 2:17 in the morning, to get out of bed, walk downstairs, open the front door and walk out into the dark and never come back? What is it about this classroom? Why not the other third-grade classroom? Was it a plan? Is it some sort of alien mind control? Is it a government thing? Is it a prank? What could be doing this?’ Not knowing the answer to that question when I started writing was pretty compelling. It was easy for me to lock in to the mindset of a parent who is demanding answers or the teacher who has no idea. Or does she? There was already all of these juicy perspectives of people who are tasked with solving this case or who have a lot of stakes in getting this thing solved. So, it was easy to hit the ground running with that question.

This is a movie that starts weird and I think it ends way weirder, but it also stays both feet on the ground as much as it can. It’s a movie that obeys the rules of its own universe so it’s not going to spiral into some bizarre, hallucinogenic nightmare. But it is a twisty, turn-y movie. It reinvents itself every 20 minutes while still staying true to the central engine. But it’s also a fun movie. It’s funny, scary, inviting. It’s not a big, grim, morose slog, and yet, the story it tells is really f***ed up.

As with Barbarian, you shatter the expected structure of the narrative, and have a brilliant cast that makes the most of it…

There are seven leads of this movie. Everyone gets to be the star of Weapons for their little 12-minute chunk. And so, every person I cast, I’m casting the star of the show.

The two most forward facing ones at the beginning of the movie are Julia Garner and Josh Brolin. I think it’s easy to mistake Julia as a little bit of a delicate person. But she has this really powerful core. Her magic is that she’s able to access both of these parts of herself with a lot of compelling expertise. And so, it’s fun to see someone who you would at first think is kind of a prey animal turn into something formidable. It’s easy to cast a badass, but could that badass play a compelling third-grade teacher whose main problem is that she loves her class so much but still needs to be able to bring it? It’s a short list of people who can do that, and Julia can. Josh is one of my favourite actors. He’s able to do so much with so little. He’s gruff, but he’s incredibly vulnerable and he’s just compelling. He’s a movie star. It’s one of the gifts of my life to be able to have Josh Brolin be in this movie.

How do you feel about what you set out to do with Weapons?

My mission as a filmmaker is to stay completely clear and loyal to the vision that I have when I’m writing. When I’m writing the movie, I’m watching the movie and my only job is to make sure that that stays pure. That’s the hardest thing in the world to do, because there are a million problems that come your way every day when you’re making a movie where you could just start chipping away at that vision and, inevitably, you sometimes have to. Every night when I fell asleep, I watched this movie in my mind. And I’m the proudest that when I watched it in the colour grade, which is the last step of the edit, I was watching the same movie. And to me, it’s like: ‘Okay. Now, I’m kind of bulletproof. People can love this movie. People can hate this movie. It could perform well or it couldn’t, but I won the movie, because I made what I had in my head.’ That’s the biggest victory I could ask for.

 Courtesy: Warner Bros Pictures