Weapons Director Reveals Personal Meaning Behind The Film’s Dramatic Finale

This article contains major spoilers for the film Weapons.

If you’re one of the thousands who have already sat down to watch Weapons since its release last week, chances are you’re still thinking about that gripping finale.

After keeping us all guessing about the disappearance of 17 students from the same elementary school class throughout most of the film, screenwriter and director Zach Cregger finally begins unravelling the mystery as the movie nears its end.

We soon learn that the children’s disappearance is linked to the arrival of their classmate Alex’s “aunt” Gladys.

She quickly works her dark magic on Alex’s family, putting his parents into a catatonic state and leaving him to care for them, while she seemingly feeds off them.

After this proves not to work, she includes him in her scheme, which is when the dramatic “vanishing” transpires.

Last week, the filmmaker behind Weapons told The Hollywood Reporter that the “final chapter of this movie” is “autobiographical”, inspired by his own alcoholism, as well as that of his father, who he noted died of cirrhosis.

Zach explained: “Living in a house with an alcoholic parent, the inversion of the family dynamic that happens. The idea that this foreign entity comes into your home, and it changes your parent, and you have to deal with this new behavioural pattern that you don’t understand and don’t have the equipment to deal with.

“But I don’t care if any of this stuff comes through, the alcoholic metaphor is not important to me. I hope people have fun, honestly. It’s not really my business what people make of the movie.”

He added: “I have nothing to say about it, because the movies should speak for itself, and if I have to comment on what people should get from it, then I’ve failed as a filmmaker.”

Meanwhile, Zach has been less forthcoming about another of the movie’s most talked-about (and pored-over) scenes, admitting it’s something he’s not actually worked out himself yet.

Weapons is in cinemas now.