‘Weapons’ Is Why We Go to the Movies, With Zach Cregger!

21:17There's a pretty clever sequence where we really understand what's happened when Millie goes for a drive one day. I think she's headed off to work and Tim's taking a shower. And inside of the shower's four walls, he gets kind of bonked around like a pinball because of the way that he is physically connected to Millie as she is making left turns and right turns on the roadway. It's a pretty cool scene. There are a lot of other examples of this. There are some really high tension ones. there's something a little bit strange about the movie though Brie and Franco were both very good in this movie Franco is usually more of a live wire type as a screen presence here he's a sad sack Brie is a little bit more standard fare she's usually very exceptional as a perky regular gal trying to make it all work her new job and her boyfriend with these loser equalities and her domesticated future she's a really sensitive and smart actor and she's fun to watch slowly realize and accept that her boyfriend's paranoia about this condition is actually more real than it seems.

22:16The movie has a couple of really amusing set pieces that find Brie and Franco being drawn together, their bodies kind of contorting until they're fixed. When they learn that muscle relaxers serve as like a depressant for this force that's keeping them together, there's this great shot chaser scene where they hoover up a bunch of crushed up pills and then this Chekhov's power saw slices them apart. It's kind of worth the price of admission, but it is an unsubtle scene in a series of them. There's another one in which the couple literally becomes stuck together inside of each other while having sex in a bathroom stall.

22:49It kind of keeps hammering home its core theme. You know, when you're in deep in a relationship, you can feel stuck for better or worse. And so the movie resolves itself in a little bit of a groan-worthy way. So we're kind of deep into spoiler territory. If you haven't seen Together and you don't want to spoil it for you, maybe fast forward a few minutes or so. But eventually the movie decides that the sunken church that we saw earlier in the film in which Tim eventually returns to to investigate is the former site of an ancient cult that preaches the transformative power of soulmate fusion in which two people are literally, literally wedded together into a single organism.

23:26And Tim and Millie have been resisting making this big commitment throughout the film and they're magically, almost demonically connected. They fight and they fight and they fight this union until they finally just decide to succumb and be together as one forever. ever. And the movie ends as Millie's parents show up for pre-planned lunch at their home and discover that Tim and Millie are now one seemingly, you know, binary single person, who I guess we would call Tilly. And so Tilly greets their parents. And it's a little bit of a too cute button on a movie that wants to have it both ways, I think, as like a super serious exploration of commitment and also a gross out physical horror comedy.

24:04And together isn't bad. I mostly enjoyed myself with the movie and I don't want to pick on it too much compared to weapons but it does underscore where I think horror was or has been what kinds of movies tend to rise to the surface especially those through the smaller super indies like Neon and A24 versus what old school studio horror suspense films were about and could accomplish and maybe hopefully will begin to accomplish again soon which leads me of course to weapons so Weapons as I mentioned written and directed by Kreger this is his second feature after Barbarian it stars Josh Brolin Julia Garner Alden Ehrenreich Austin Abrams Carrie Christopher Benedict Wong and Amy Madigan and it's shot by Larkin Sipley he shot everything everywhere all at once in a couple of other great films the log line is simple you've probably seen the trailers we've been hyping this movie on the show for a little while in part because of how much Chris and I really loved Barbarian and because Amanda and I saw this trailer at CinemaCon, and we were very excited.

25:10And even before that, there was news of a large bidding war for this script in Hollywood. And there's some mythos. And part of that mythos is around the idea of this being what Zach has described as Magnolia meets Hereditary, which of course is a big fat bullseye for me and anybody who knows what I like. So the story of the movie is one night, all but one children from Justine Gandy's classroom mysteriously run off into the night. Justine and the rest of the community are left questioning who or what is behind the children's disappearance. And so what are the takeaways here? An original horror thriller from a writer director is my favorite thing in all of the movies.

25:51My favorite filmmakers have all more or less worked in the genre. Jordan Peele has been the example I have cited most often since we started doing this show in 2017. He was one of the first guests on the show. And somewhat amusingly, Peele reportedly was really pissed that his company, Monkeypaw, wasn't able to lock down the weapons script as a production partner when it hit that bidding war stage at studios that did eventually go to Warner Brothers. And it makes sense. You know, this is a movie that is made in his image. It's made in the image of John Carpenter and Alfred Hitchcock and Polanski and Argento and Park Chan-wook and Sam Fuller and on down the line.

26:25There's a long strain of movie history. It's a hyper-taught, tightly structured, engagingly unfolding mystery nightmare. It's a little weird. It's a lot funny. It's very discomforting at times. Sharp performances and an absolute smashola of an ending. So here are five things that I really, really liked about this movie. And I'll try to keep it as vague as I can before getting into spoiler territory so people can decide whether or not they want to see this movie. I recommend that you do. It is one of my favorites. So anyway, like I said, it was hyped as Magnolia, but horror due to this multi-character interconnected structure.

26:59And the structure of the movie is the first thing that I think is really, really impressive. There are definitely some similarities to PTA's somewhat beloved, somewhat maligned LA epic that led to a kind of crash out for him and a reimagination of his career. But in that movie, there is a sad sack, mustachioed cop played by John C. Reilly. And in this movie, there is a sad sack, mustachioed cop played by Alden Ehrenreich. And like the somewhat unstable, substance-dependent woman who disrupts Reilly's life in that movie, There is one in this movie. Melora Walters is in Magnolia. Julia Garner, who plays Justine Gandy, the teacher, is in this film.

27:35There are some other superficial similarities to Magnolia in this movie. There's the striking needle drops and really this sense of chaos rippling through a community and then being met by the violent randomness of the universe is like a defining aspect of modern life. This movie, it feels very much in conversation with that. But Kreger's movie is two hours. It's compact and it's frenzied in a way that Magnolia is not. It's really a movie about suburban panic that has as much in common with, I think, the Twilight Zone's landmark episode, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, than like an Altman-style ensemble drama.

28:12And the way that each of the seven key character stories are told is not a tableau about the wide-ranging community of an American city and the class and the generational divide that ripples through. this is a movie about characters literally colliding into each other confronting the rage and fear that befalls this town when these kids disappear and where each of these characters story starts and ends before the next one picks up is this ingenious trick of screenwriting it's never all in the same place and it allows for both character development and for the plot to unfurl excitingly but kind of at the proper intervals you know each character gets their own chapter and where we jump into their life at this stage of this crisis is fascinating.

28:55At my screening, there was applause between each chapter section because of the anticipation that Kreger strikes through each section of the story. And as the revelations drew close, the connections from the previous chapters, you could revel in the convergences, right? You got to see this movie in a theater with a big crowd because the sense of like something has just happened and I need to look around to see how everybody else feels about it really runs deeply into this movie. So that's the first thing in the structure. The second thing is the performances. So just like Barbarian, this is a movie that is dancing on a very narrow line between horror and comedy.

29:27Weapons leans more suspense than Barbarian's kind of tonal whiplash from section to section. But by doing the exact same thing that the recent Naked Gun movie did, it really does succeed. So, Kregor has cast some serious heavyweight actors, right? Like Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, in a movie that has ghoulish freakouts, tonal absurdity, laugh-out-loud jump-scary actions. Brolin in particular has one of the funniest post-scare laugh lines I've heard in a movie in some time. In Barbarian, Kreger weaponized Justin Long's kind of affable smarminess so well. And he does the same thing here with Benedict Wong and Austin Abrams, two very funny actors who you wouldn't call comedians, but are very good at pushing comedy in a drama.

30:08And then Cary Christopher plays Alex Lilly. He's the glue of the story. He's the one student who remains after the disappearance of these other children. and Christopher has a really tough job in this film. He is proximate to so much of the madness and has to have a steely reserve once his role in the story is revealed. It's an amazing child performance and then there's the coup de grace performance in the movie. This is an actor who I did not know was in this movie when I sat down to see it. They're not featured prominently in the trailer. It's Amy Madigan, the longtime actress who you probably know best from Field of Dreams.

30:42She is a critical figure in the story and she brings a wild blend of elderly fragility and warmth and a really horrifying menace. And so I won't say more than that yet. The third thing is the filmmaking. So Kreger, I think, has really leveled up in this respect. The camera in this movie is flying around and it's always moving. Quick zooms in and out or on a dolly following characters racing down hallways or dark corridors, peering around the corners of whatever terrifying thing is on the other side. The movie is very slick and graceful. It kind of glides along with great, great pace. I'm reluctant to compare the movie to The Shining for obvious reasons.

31:25I think that's a little unfair to it. But when you are watching The Shining, you can feel yourself almost being carried by the camera to the next unnerving image and idea. You're on a journey. And I did feel that same feeling here watching this movie. There's a near constant sense of what's next that the images that Craig creates combined with the score that he helped to co-write, which drives this woozy concern that is all throughout this movie. And anytime it starts to shift into a character drama about people at a stuck point in their lives, something really scary and seemingly random races into the frame, forcing you to think about this urgent question of what the hell happened to these kids.

32:07and there are a lot of mechanical choices that go into making movies like this work, especially in horror, you can feel directors in post-production manipulating the audiences with Foley or score or manufactured scares. And one of the things that I like about weapons is that the scary moments, and there are three or four times when you really want to close your eyes or look away, are not really like that. They're constructed, of course, they're written, but they're upsetting and tense in part because there are logical manifestations of what the characters are going through. And when those characters are attacked, poked by needles, stabbed, thrashed by oncoming traffic, you can feel the mania of this world being unleashed.

32:48And it's all disturbing and fantastical, but also very grounded. Which leads me to themes. This is the fourth thing that I think is really special about this movie. And this is really what differentiates it from Together. Weapons is about something, of course. It's not an ornate metaphor, however. whereas together is an extended metaphor. This is a child abduction movie. This is a movie that you can watch purely as a plot exercise, as a corker. And it is a corker. I'll cite a few movies that are kind of in the tradition of this when we get into the syllabus at the end of this conversation that I'm having with myself.

33:24But it's really a movie about losing someone you care about and the sad desperation that it creates in us and the way that it can infect everything, the way it fosters paranoia and causes you to reach for horrible answers that don't exist, but start to feel real. And then you have no other place to go but to get committed to these answers that you've invented in your own mind. You know, I have lost people very close to me in my life. And this idea resonates with me really deeply. And the 2025 movie that Weapons neatly maps onto that would make for a nifty double feature is David Cronenberg's The Shrouds.

34:01They're made in entirely different registers, but they're about the same feeling of panic and despair and awful decision making in the face of death. And unlike Together, which takes this quite literal approach to its big idea in an effort to quote unquote elevate the material, Weapons mostly just plays as a crazy movie that keeps escalating with purpose without the rising power of an elevator. It is going up incrementally and getting crazier and crazier and higher and higher, but not too fast. And if you don't want to tangle with Kreger's big feelings inside the movie, you really don't have to.

34:38It features some indelible horror movie images, gnarly kills, great music, and last but not least, the ending. so I have talked in the past about the feeling I get in a movie that I'm really enjoying and starting to realize that I love when we get to the final stretch so I start leaning forward in my seat and I start pulling at the fabric in the movie theater chair armrest I've talked about this while watching I don't know the 15 the final 15 minutes of Whiplash is an example I think I talked about that in the Rewatchables episode that I did with Bill some years ago and the bowling alley sequence of There Will Be Blood as an example of this too.

35:17When a movie is kind of piercing my skin and getting into my bloodstream and Weapons' final 15 minutes did this for me. So we're getting into major spoiler territory here but the final two segments of the film reveal not just what has happened to the 17 children who go missing but who was responsible and how it happened. This is a very difficult needle to thread and I suspect some may feel let down by the hype machine that I am helping to power on this podcast and I must admit A feeling, an initial feeling of kind of queasiness as I started piecing together that, and again, we're in spoiler territory here.

35:54In the construction of the movie, Aunt Gladys, who comes to stay with Alex and sort of take over his life, is a demonic witch who's controlling these children and her family and wreaking havoc on this town. And I thought at first, like, a witch? I don't know. That seems a little pat. But it's what the movie does with Gladys and what Amy Madigan brings to the character that quickly shifted my confusion or slight letdown into a kind of fascination. And then the movie sets you up for this incredible moment of joy. So Gladys' powers of mind and body control are really fascinatingly rendered in this movie.

36:34They're not just supernatural, but she almost becomes like superhuman. She starts to feel like Zod from Superman In the way that she can kind of presage Another character's actions Get the upper hand And then until she doesn't And when she doesn't her plan backfires And our core characters Are kind of relieved Of their hypnosis And then the kids Are freed from one version Of mind control And locked into another And they begin racing up the stairs at the end of this movie And when the kids started racing up the stairs stairs and the moment of recognition of her loss of power that Madigan expresses.

37:13And you know that we are about to watch something pretty crazy. I didn't realize how crazy by the time we got to the end of it, but pretty crazy. I haven't been that locked in in a movie theater seat in a long time. I could feel my knees shaking and my feet tapping and the hair standing up. And as the kids started crashing through the windows and over the yard fences and across the backyards of their town, really to annihilate their terrorizer. They tear Gladys inch from inch in an extremely gory and hilarious denouement. I just let out a huge burst of sigh of relief laughter. This is like an exciting, insane, gory, funny, euphoric convergence.

37:55And what starts out as this cold Fincherian character study morphs into a relationship drama and then into a detective movie and then into a stoner comedy and then into a witch horror and then into Cannibal Holocaust. And it's just delightful. It's expertly made and it is so exciting to have something like this. You may be listening to this and thinking like, ah, you're overselling it or you're overhyping it. I'm just saying for me, this is my favorite stuff. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having the right people in your corner can make all the difference. Fall festival movie season is upon us, and it's always a really stressful time here at The Big Picture.

38:37Luckily, I have Amanda at my side to help me determine what movies we're going to see, which ones she'll take care of. And I also have my family at home taking care of me, and I'm really grateful for that. And like those people, State Farm is there to help you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. it did make me think of a lot of movies and I didn't want to do a syllabus as a standalone video or on social ahead of time because I didn't want to give away not just the reveal about Aunt Gladys but about all of the what I perceive to be the myriad influences and if you listen to my conversation with Kreger a little bit later on you'll hear him kind of like not only pitch his influences but kind of joust with some of the ones that I suggested nevertheless these are some movies that I think you might find interesting if you really dug weapons and can see pieces here and there.

39:32The first is the British horror film Village of the Damned from 1960 which is about a micro generation of children who are all conceived and born on the same day who all have shocks of blonde hair and who can emit powerful energy from their bodies. The movie was later remade by John Carpenter in a less successful remake with Christopher Reeve. But the eerie quality, the oddness of little kids and what is really going on with little kids is really exemplified in this movie, which is kind of schlocky and has an age super great, but it's still kind of fun as a, you know, an originating text of mid-century horror.

40:14The next movie is Rosemary's Baby. There is a lot of, I thought a lot of Casanova and her insane schemes, theme with Rosemary in this movie in the final stretch. And you'll see the makeup choices that are made by for Amy Madigan kind of fit with Ruth Gordon's look in that movie quite a bit. The other one is somewhat obscure. I don't think Zach was thinking of this movie, but it is a good fit for a syllabus. It's the blood on Satan's claw, which is a British folk horror from 1971 directed by Pierce Haggard. And it's about a town and specifically a group of young children who are exposed to Satan's remains, literally his skeleton, and it causes some devilish changes inside of them.

41:00A little bit of that in this movie as well. I thought of the Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Philip Kaufman version from 1978 quite a bit. Craig didn't really, he said he was not really a body snatchers guy, but there is something about body and mind control and the idea of a prevailing force that is overtakes our consciousness and our physical form that is a huge part of what transpires in the second half of Weapons that I think makes a lot of sense. I also kicked Ordinary People to Kreger. He didn't really vibe with that one, but Ordinary People is a movie about a family in the suburbs who don't really know how to deal with tremendous loss.

41:36In the case of that movie, which is Robert Redford's directorial debut and a movie that won Best Picture, a family, Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore have lost a son and their other son, played by Tim Hutton, is trying to figure out how to cope with it and go forward and all of them are kind of at cross purposes and dealing in different ways. And this is definitely a movie about, you know, Josh Brolin's father character who makes it his mission to figure out what happened to his son. But also it becomes a movie about the dawning realization of what you didn't say, how you didn't take care of your family and communicate with your loved ones in the way that you felt you should have when they were here and in front of you.

42:18And there's a particularly scary but emotionally effective scene between Brolin in a kind of dream state. This is a riveting moment in the movie where he is in this kind of dream state. He's been sleeping in his son's bed. He gets out of bed and he thinks he hears his son, I believe his name is Michael, leaving the house. And he follows him out of the house and he follows him through the neighborhood and he follows him to another house. And when he gets to another house, he sees this image of an assault rifle high in the sky. and it's as close as weapons gets to a kind of lynchian moment and it's unexplained and we're meant to accept the dream logic of this moment for brolin's character and when he goes into the house in which the assault rifle appeared over the roof he finds his son sleeping in a bed and he tells him how he feels how he he what he wished he had said to him when he was there when he could reach him and touch him and talk to him and how important he is to him.

43:20And he's breaking down. And just as he's breaking down, a terrifying thing happens in part as a kind of manifestation of the fact that he's engaging with this like post-traumatic psychosis and ordinary people is not a horror movie by any stretch of the imagination. And, but it kind of is kind of taps into that feeling of deep, unimaginable loss and our inability to resolve the feeling and just accept it over time. And Weapons is a really good example of that too. I thought of some other movies too that are maybe a little bit more fun than Ordinary People. The Witches of Eastwick, the George Miller movie popped into my head in terms of what witches can do in terms of casting spells and controlling minds and bodies.

44:00There's some really fun stuff in that movie, especially a kind of braver sequence with Jack Nicholson in a church being controlled by the three witches in that story. I thought of Carpenter and They Live and the idea of living in a society where not as always as it seems. And as a companion to that, I thought of The Burbs, the Joe Dante movie, which is one of the simultaneously funniest and scariest what's in that house movies. That movie is a huge movie for my wife and she grew up loving it. And so we always like to watch The Burbs. And there's definitely a little bit of The Burbs in this. You know, Shortcuts from Robert Altman is one of the signature influences on Paul Thomas Anderson.

44:38and his movie Magnolia owes a great debt, not just to the big sprawling ensemble movies that Altman made like MASH and like Nashville, but also to Shortcuts of 93, the Raymond Carver adaptations about lives of people living in Los Angeles at a certain time in history and the ways that they connect or do not connect. I thought of Adam and Goyan's The Sweet Hereafter, the 1997 Russell Banks adaptation about a community that has lost a large number of children to a terrible accident and the way that people don't really know how to cope with that and what happens in the aftermath of that. I've mentioned Magnolia.

45:16I thought a little bit of Todd Field's Little Children, which is an adaptation of a Tom Parada novel about the insecurity and quiet desperation of life in the suburbs, which is a movie I've always liked starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. In terms of pure standard issue horror, I think James Wan's Insidious is the movie that has the most similar kind of visual palette. And the way that young children intersect with this kind of psychotic nether region feels like there's something going on there, too, that's in conversation. it's obvious that Prisoners the Denis Villeneuve Roger Deakins child abduction film that is a little bit of a mystery movie a little bit of a movie about grief a little bit of a movie about Hugh Jackman yelling extremely loudly is a big influence on this movie you can hear Zach talk about that as we get further on and then of course Barbarian which I think a lot of people have probably seen by now is streaming on Netflix if you haven't seen it it is a movie that is different but connected to this movie Zach Kregor, he loves basements.

46:25That's one thing I'll say. You know, basements figure into this film as well. Weapons is really exciting. And I think you'll get even more excited when you hear me talk with Zach Kregor about it. So let's do that right now.

46:40Zach Kregor is back. I'm so excited. We're here to talk about weapons. This is very exciting, Zach. I'm so excited to be here, man. I really enjoyed our last conversation and I was hoping that we'd get to do it again. And so this is a treat. So I read that Weapons was written before Barbarian. Is that true? That's not true. Before it was released, though. That is true. Yes. So, yeah, I wrote it while I was in the edit. So can you describe for me the day you started writing it? Do you remember what happened, what spurred it? Well, yeah. I mean, it was a terrible, it was like a terrible, terrible time for me.

47:22You know, so it's not really a secret. I've talked about it before. But, you know, Trevor Moore, who I was in The Whitest Kids with, died very, very suddenly and terribly. And I was, you know, going through it, you know, and I was just I was just feeling all the feelings. I'm still feeling all the feelings. You know, I'm not I'm not like in the clear. um and so i just sat down to just start writing just to just to engage with my pain in a way that was um you know not destructive but constructive so i wasn't sitting down to write a movie i was sitting down to just write to soothe myself and to just tell myself a story about who fucking knows but like it was very clear to me as i was writing what what i was doing and so i started with the first line, you know, a girl's telling a scary story and, uh, okay.

48:13So she goes to school. What happened to her teacher? I mean, literally sentence by sentence, I'm discovering the story as I go, which is how I kind of wrote barbarian. And, um, you know, as I got through the cold open and these kids left, it just felt really like soothing and correct. And I knew, okay, I've got a teacher. I've got an angry parent. I kind of knew like, that's, that's a good place to kind of aim my beginning and then let's just see where it goes. So in a way it was like another really fun process of discovery. And, um, and, uh, and I didn't really have an ending, you know? And so when you write something like this, where you start with the question, but you don't know the answer, it's a little daunting because you might not be able to land the plane.

48:55And, um, so I probably got about 50 pages in before I kind of figured out what, what had happened, why these kids did what they did. And that was a good day because I was like, oh, I think there's an end to the story that I enjoy. So hopefully other people will. The ending is arguably the best part. So we'll get to that shortly. Thanks. It's funny how many people seem to have the opposite attitude. Well, I think there is a fine line between the explanation and the ending. And I think that I wonder what the take is there. I don't want to... We'll get there shortly. Did your life change at all after Barbarian?

49:34Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. In what ways? Well, I mean, in ways that I no longer was aspiring to hopefully one day get my big break and direct a movie. And Barbarian surprised me and surprised people. And so it felt like, okay, it looks like I'm going to get to make another movie. I wasn't prepared for the reception that the script for weapons was going to get. And so that felt, you know, like very much new territory. It was like, okay, I get to make a movie and I get to make a movie with actual resources. This time, you know, Barbarian is a four and a half million dollar movie and weapons is about, you know, in the neighborhood of 40.

50:14So it was it was a big, a big shift. So, yeah, that that that was definitely different. However, I will say this, the only silver lining to the just awful chapter of Trevor's death was that I was allowed the opportunity, or I don't know if it's an opportunity, but I was basically given the chance to write for the sake of urgency and just a genuine place of creativity as opposed to a place of ambition. of ambition. You know, I was not, I was spared from thinking, what's my barbarian follow-up that wasn't really available to, I couldn't think that way. I, I, that's not how I felt. And so I think that, you know, whatever people tend to enjoy about this story is, is probably just because it comes from a place that is not, you know, yeah, it's not ambitious.

51:07Um, no, no, I'm not going to like pretend like, Oh, I'm like such a pure heart creative. I mean, I definitely had to go back and put my thinking cap on and try and like fix it. You know, my first draft was a total mess. And I had to think, OK, if this is a movie, how can it work? So, you know, that that stuff is there. But but the impetus for it wasn't wasn't like my follow up, you know. It's really funny that you say that, though, because the next thing I wanted to ask you was that there is something very free. And I wrote down the word ambitious about this movie, about the even the idea that you could make a movie like this, given where you were at that stage of your life.

51:42And then I was curious if like making Barbarian, if you had tried to write a movie like this after that movie came out and everybody told you, oh, you're so great and most exciting new voice in horror, would you have been stricken somehow or unable to kind of conceptualize something that doesn't feel kind of stuck in a lot of the typical modes of contemporary horror? you know i don't know if i'll ever know the answer to that question however i wrote you know right now i'm i'm prepping for a movie that i also wrote after barbarian and long before um weapons and you know i don't think this one is a product of ambition and i think it's really fun and careless and i mean that in the best way you know uh and then the movie that i hope to do after this i also wrote before uh weapons and i think it's like maybe the best thing I ever wrote.

52:24So I don't know. I mean, like I, I've been able to kind of psych myself out of, of thinking ambitiously for, for whatever reason, you know, the, the thing I wrote now, I was like, I'll never direct this. So I'm just going to say gives a shit and just like not care, which is by the way, the best attitude, you know, if you don't care, you're doing it right. If you care, you know, sometimes I think that's dangerous. Um, anyway, I, yeah. So, so we'll see i don't know let me ask you about that then because the one of the things that strikes me about the movie the new movie is the the filmmaking feels like a very a big step up and it feels like more assured thanks the sound and the score is really impressive the way the camera moves is kind of amazing and it does feel like a movie that is written by a guy who's like i know exactly how to direct this movie so to hear you say that's the way i felt it is no no but i yeah yeah because when i'm writing i'm watching the movie as i'm writing and so i i I definitely know what I want.

53:23Like when the script is done, I have the movie in my head. And so I feel like that was the other thing is like, you know, the sale was like intimidating and crazy. And, but, but I really didn't think, oh, what if I'm not up to the task? You know, I, I have an arrogance in me and that arrogance is that I know how to make a movie like this. And so I was, I was able to just kind of go for it. Was it intimidating at all to have this large budget and these more famous people in your cast and just a grander scale and the aftermath of a bidding war? Or were you like, this is exactly where I want to be?

53:56No, it was where I wanted to be. I felt like I had a clear mission and I was able to, you know, get people that could execute the mission. You know, I mean, I was intimidated to meet Josh Brolin the first time, you know, for sure. And that was a crazy, I really didn't do a good job of my first impression with him. I was supposed to go meet him at his house. I sent him the script. I was supposed to go meet him at his house. we're meeting at noon. It's about 11. I figure it's take me an hour to get to Malibu from where I live in the East side. And, uh, so it's, it's like, you know, it's 10 45, maybe I'm getting ready to go.

54:30And I get this phone call from my agent's assistant. And they're like, where are you? I was like, what do you mean? They're like, Josh has been waiting for you for 45 minutes. I'm like, dude, I drove like an idiot. Oh, like, you know, I, or my way. And then I, you know, I ring the doorbell and I'm sweating bullets and I don't have a good excuse. I was building Legos in my house, just like not doing anything. And he just opened the door and was just like shaking his head. He's like, what are you, what are you doing, man? I was just like, I was just like, hi, please respect me and be in my, you know, trust me.

55:03It was a, it was a gnarly way to start our relationship, but he's cool, dude. I mean, it was, it was good. He kind of brings that energy to the performance though, in a good way. So maybe that was helpful. What? Like a disapproving? Yeah. Just like frustrated. Like what's your problem, dude? Yeah. Maybe. tell me a little bit about the filmmaking like I was really struck by how the camera is constantly moving zooming in and zooming out and it feels like it's on a dolly following people and it's always going around a corner and looking for something new and that felt very exciting yeah one of my inspirations for that was son of saul have you seen some yeah you know yeah I'm very interested in like hyper subjectivity.

55:46And so that was something that Larkin, my Larkin disciples, my, my DP. And that's something that we talked about a lot is like, you know, every chapter should be hyper subjective. And, and so we should always be in a POV or an OTS and, you know, really just living in the perspective of, of who we're following. And, um, and so that was, you know, that was kind of a rule that we set for ourselves really early on. And it just felt like the correct way to tell the story is to just be perched on the shoulder of each protagonist. And yeah, you know, it was, it was pretty clear early on that that's what we do.

56:20Related to that, one thing that I really like about this movie that I think distinguishes it from a lot of its contemporaries is that it is extremely story and character forward. It doesn't mean it doesn't have themes, but it's not doing a thing that I think you find in a lot of horror, where it's sort of like, let's announce the theme and then hold your hand through the theme of the movie all the way through. When you get to the end of this movie, you can think about that. Is that something that comes naturally? Is that something you intellectualize or is it just you're doing what you want to do and telling the story you want to tell?

56:49Well, I really try not to intellectualize anything really when I'm writing. So no, I mean, honestly, this is like, it started with me kind of obsessing over how I felt about Trevor. And then the end of it is me kind of obsessing over my dad. And, and I don't know how those two things connect, but somehow to me they, they did. And so it's really, it's a very personal movie. I don't have a statement the movie's not political to me it's it's a it's a completely introverted kind of diary entry so um yeah I don't even know if I just answered your question but no you did you did okay cool I heard you say something funny as well that the way that the kids are running leaving their homes is something you did just because you thought it looked cool and didn't have some like broad easter egg rationalization to it no there's no yeah there's no meaning there But it does, it does to me, it just invites a little more kind of speculation.

57:45You know, it's like if they just ran out normally, it'd be like, oh, that's weird. But if they all run out with a kind of bizarre posture, then it's like, okay, something, there's another dimension at work here and I don't know what it is. And so I just, it just felt provocative. When you're pursuing ideas like this that are, you know, genre focused in a little left field, like are you, do you have sounding boards? Do you have people that you're sending this to or saying like, what if I did this? Or is it, is it very private? it's pretty private. Um, I got stuck on weapons early on and I did have like a kind of a brainstorm session with a buddy of mine who helped me kind of unstick.

58:18So that was, you know, that, that, that was good, but I don't do that too much. I'm not, I'm definitely not one of those, like let's go to dinner so I can pitch you my movie kind of guys. Okay. Okay. Um, I, I'm right in seclusion a little bit more. Did you rehearse with the cast? Um, no, I mean, one scene, the bar scene with Alden and Julia, We took a weekend and we ran that like at my house in Atlanta for just a couple of hours, you know, but we were already in the middle of production. So, no, I'm definitely not a big rehearsal guy. Not not for any reason. I don't have anything against rehearsal, but, you know, schedules being what they are, people are flying in midway through and it just wasn't really available.

58:58We did a table read over Zoom and that was kind of like the rehearsal, honestly, which is like I don't love doing a table read over Zoom. And that's pretty awful. But so, yeah, no, not so much. Were you very tight to the script during the making or was there room? Yeah, very tight to the script. Yeah, I think there's a couple of ad libs. I don't want to pretend there's none. But, you know, but generally it's pretty much verbatim. Yeah, I was curious about that because the movie is so tightly constructed. And I was wondering how much of what you filmed is everything that you filmed in the movie because of the way that the narrative unfurls.

59:31No, there's a scene where Alden goes to a doctor and gets his hand checked out. And I do that, just the pacing didn't work. There's a scene where James the junkie goes to a drug dealer to try and like sell his little like gizmo that he stole. And he gets like punched in the face and like kicked out, which is a really fun scene. But it just felt like we've got to move, you know? And so they were pacing considerations, but only those two, I think. How many times can Austin Abrams get punched in one movie? I guess is a question. Yeah. Yeah. Question about writing scare scenes. So when you're writing one, and there are a few really good ones in this movie, are you writing what scares you or what you think scares other people?

1:00:12I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. It must be what scares me. I mean, if there's, I tell you this, I'm not sitting on something that's terrifying to me that I wouldn't dare put in a movie. You know, if I have access to anything scary, believe me, I'm going to try and capitalize on it. So I think it's probably both. Well, I ask because there are some recurring... The fear of being poked is something that pops up a lot in this movie. Let me think about that. What do you mean? Well, needles... I mean, obviously we have the needles and the forks. Silverware, just the sharp sticks piercing the finger.

1:00:45Yeah. This idea of being penetrated by something sharp and blood appearing, and then that being a kind of recurring image in this movie is unmistakable. I'm not the first horror movie to utilize being stabbed with things. You're zooming in right on bleeding fingers a few times in this movie, you know, is there, there's not any like a Freudian subtext there to someone getting underneath your skin. They're, they're very well may be Sean, but I, I, I haven't yet identified it. Well, there's like a second layer to that too, which is the movie literalizes. And I thought was really interesting, which is kind of the fear of infection.

1:01:18You know, at one point, Paul asks about on purpose, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like I even just got the, the parasites on TV and she's teaching a lesson on, I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm taking a page out of every movie ever made where someone's teaching a class, you know, and they have to kind of explain the subtext of the movie and the lesson. So I, I'm guilty of that. I think it works really well. And I don't know if I would have glommed onto that if I didn't get a chance to see it a second time. So it's not. Have you seen it twice? I did. I did. Okay. Well, I kind of snuck into the premiere and then I saw a press screening.

1:01:49Oh, you were at the premiere. Yeah. It was really fun. It was, that crowd was cool. that was a great way to see the movie I haven't been to enough premieres to know if like are premier crowds just kind of like you know fish in a barrel I think probably yes everyone's full of shit and they're like this is my best friend's movie but the applause at the chapter breaks was incredibly cool and just made the movie feel fun in a way that isn't anyway how about the way that comedy leaks into the movie we did talk about this when we talked about Barbarian and using you know your previous life as a creative person and making it fit.

1:02:23This is different. This definitely leans more classic suspense horror, but there are a couple of laugh moments. Brolin in the bed is like one of the hardest moments I've laughed in movies in years. Brolin in the bed is a line I put in because I thought it was funny. Beyond that, I got to be honest with you because I've been hearing this a lot lately. It's like, oh, you know, so much comedy in this. It's such a comedy. And I was a little like, is it really? I don't think of this as being a funny movie. That Brolin in the bedlines sure can't really think of another one where i was like this will be funny you know like maybe maybe austin when he's on the phone calling about the kids and seeing the wanted poster to me i i get that's funny but um yeah i'm surprised people are are taken by by the and i don't know i don't know what i think it's because you have this combination of actors too like austin like june um even like benedict wong who are like pretty funny you know they're not they're not comedians, but who are kind of naturally funny.

1:03:22And so they feel comfortable riffing in an otherwise extremely tense moment in a movie. You know, absolutely. And I do realize, you know, when I'm casting, I have to have people that are funny. Even Josh, Josh is very, very funny. And Alden is like, dude, the pale Caesar, Alden is like the funniest person in the world. So like, you know, I definitely, that is a requisite for, for someone I want to work with But to me, it's like, I hope it's funny in like a, I'm not comparing myself to Alexander Payne, but that sort of like kind of dry humor that can like bloom a little bit here and there, but it's always a little funny.

1:04:00It's kind of what I hope I'm able to do. You know, that's what I'm always kind of aiming for, but I don't know if I'm, if I'm successful. seeing the movie at the premiere I did not know Amy Madigan was in this movie before I saw it and you brought her on stage and I don't did you say you're my angel? you used a very warm descriptor of her no I said my dream come true my dream come true that's what it was which is true and she's amazing and obviously very important to this movie but why did you say my dream come true to her and how did she come to be in the movie? you know that part is so it's it's just such a a balancing act you need somebody who can be completely ebullient and and spunky and disarming and kind of inviting in in a repulsive way and that's a that's a tough one who also has like a lethal old reptilian core that is readily accessible and you know you watch Amy in Field of Dreams and you get, you get side A and then you watch her in like Gone Baby Gone or Carnival and you get side B.

1:05:09And, and it's like, and so I, I met with her, uh, again in Malibu, I guess everyone's in fucking Malibu. I drove out and had lunch with her at this restaurant and, and, and I was driving out there and I kind of knew, I was like, God, Amy is, I just knew like she was going to be right for this part. But I have a habit of like offering people roles very impulsively. And I was like, don't offer her the part, Zach, like, you know, leave the lunch, tell her you're still in the process and, you know, you'll get back to her, like, you know, be cool. And dude, I'm telling you before the lunch hit the table, I was like, only you can play this part.

1:05:43You have to play this part, you know, because she just sitting there and looking at her and kind of just studying her. I was just like, this is it. Like, this is the person, like she has everything I need and she's so cool. And she liked the role and she got it. And I was just like there's nobody else. So I just lucked out, you know, that's a hard role. You write it and you're like, I hope there's a human being that can do this. And then you get Amy Madigan and you're like, thank you, God. You can see the movie going belly up if it's the wrong person, because could you imagine? Yeah. Yeah. I think, and that's kind of related to what I assume you're hearing a little bit of the feedback on.

1:06:17And the movie is really interesting because it's the mystery of it. And the fact that, you know, Josh's section is very much like a detective story. You've got a cop on the case. There are all of these elements that are very Fincherian thriller through the first hour or so. And then it does take a hard, hard turn into metaphysical, supernatural horror movie stuff. And it feels like, I'm curious if you feel like you are intentionally wrong-footing the audience with the exception of a handful of the scares, and maybe that's what some of the reaction you're getting. Because the conclusion of the movie is like absolute thrill a minute, ripping the cushion out of your movie theater seat.

1:06:55But you have to get on board with the big choice you make to explain what is going on. I didn't set out to wrong foot the audience. I just, I just wrote the movie that just felt like what the movie wanted to be, you know? So I, I, I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm aware, you know, that Barbarian is a very divisive movie. And I think that the main criticism that I hear again and again is like, you know, first half great second half stupid you know um i didn't sign up for that and and that was my review yeah you know yeah i heard you um so i think i am sensitive to that but i also am like you know whatever i look all i want to do is write my favorite movie and make my favorite movie and this is what i like so you know i can't i can't really care about anything other than than what what am I going to sleep soundly having made?

1:07:46So I don't know. This is it. I have a bad habit as a movie dork of telling people what movies they should watch after they've seen a new movie, you know, like, Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Do you have, what do you say? Well, for this one, I, you know, I'll pull up my list if you want. There's like a bunch. Yeah, dude, do it, do it, do it. Okay. I'll throw out the ones that I would, I would lob out there and they're so obvious. They're the lowest hanging fruit. And it's like not creative that I would say, magnolia hereditary prisoners uh picnic at hanging rock oh yeah okay um the the son of saul uh just visually and you know pulp fiction i i never thought about pulp fiction then everybody is saying it's got a lot of pulp fiction i'm like you know what i would be the biggest liar in the world if i didn't say pulp fiction changed my life when it came out so that's got to be baked in there and then i heard you say this because people were telling me to listen to your bidding episode, which I did.

1:08:39And when you said the Needful Things trailer, I was like, dude, that is in there because I had the same feeling. When I saw the Needful Things commercial on TV, I was like, that's the movie for me. I am all in. And the imagination, the movie I imagined was not the movie I watched. But the movie I imagined when I saw that trailer was just like a very special movie. And so maybe that the promise of that trailer seared something into me that I always wanted. And I think it could be some sort of subconscious aim toward that. That's a good one. I mean, I had a few of those movies on the list, obviously.

1:09:19Magnolia, for sure, because people, the trades have just been pushing the Magnolia. And that came from me, by the way. They asked me, like, how would you like us to describe this tonally in the trades? And I said, Hereditary meets Magnolia. So I'm culpable of that. That's interesting, because I do feel like there is certainly the multi-character, kind of some of the convergence of Magnolia. but I don't know your movie feels well the cold open is a direct homage to the magnolia cold open and the mustache that Alden Ehrenreich wears is is literally we know I mean literally we went to whatever I'm just gonna make a bad joke listen trust me I know as somebody who lived with magnolia deeply in 1999 I get it and even like Julia being a little bit like Melora Walters in some ways and they're kind of fucked up relationship I get all that I didn't think Yes.

1:10:03I mean, totally. There's totally some of that. But I just meant like that's your movie is a suburbs movie. Magnolia is a city. Yeah, for sure. And there is like a different energy to those things. But I'm telling you about your own movie. I wrote down Rosemary's Baby. That's that's definitely feels like some some Rosemary's Baby in it. OK. OK. Not in like the slow dread. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fun. Oh, yeah. And of course. Of course. Obviously. Yeah. I mean, all the Body Snatchers movies. OK. Those aren't big for me. So maybe I'm going to take your word on that. but they just don't loom large in my...

1:10:35Ordinary People? Did you ever see that? You know what? Long, long time ago. I mean... It's not a big one for me. Suburban families struggling to cope with loss and looking for answers that don't exist is... Sounds fun. It's a blast. Best Picture winner. Did you ever see The Witches of Eastwick? Yes. Yes, I did. Again, that's not a big one for me. Okay. Although I do love George Miller, so you'd think I would have, you know... giving it more time. You don't have to say you like it. Just something that occurred to me. You know, again, this is my bad habit. Sorry, I wasn't clear on the rules of this.

1:11:11What about Little Children? Yeah, I saw it when it came out. I saw it in the theater. I thought it was cool. I haven't seen it since. Okay, look at you, just not enjoying all the movies that I thought of. No, I love it. Dude, it doesn't mean I don't like them. You know, there's some movies that like, you know, matter in a weird way and there's others that you really like, but they don't. What is it with you in basements? oh i don't know they're just fun it's easy it's dude it's just easy i look barbarian i i was very nervous about having a basement scene in this movie because of barbarian but like that's where the kids were oh shit major spoiler sorry i will have spoiled already by this episode okay cool but that's just like you know i i got james in the house and i was like dude this is the only move and and honestly sean like i really mean this and and i don't mean to sound obnoxious when i say it But I try so hard to just turn my brain off when I'm writing completely and to just really be absent from the from the creative process.

1:12:06So I just let it I let it be what it is. And so that's what it was. Where does this movie take place? Maybrook, Pennsylvania, which is where I kind of thought prisoners took place in Pennsylvania. I found out later, I think prisoners was supposed to take place in Maine. OK, I'm not sure. But, you know, I was thinking about, you know, Deacon's photography and I was just thinking that prisoner is just visually so phenomenal. And it's weird because, you know, we're shooting in Atlanta and I was I was just like, well, I'm never going to find the prisoners neighborhood in Atlanta. You know, I want to shoot this up and, you know, I want to shoot in Vancouver or, you know, Seattle or somewhere, Oregon.

1:12:43And then I found out they shot prisoners in Atlanta and and I went to that neighborhood. It actually wasn't quite right for what we needed. So, so, you know, I, it's, it's funny, you know, I was like the dog that caught the mail truck there. And I realized, nah, it's not, that's not the right vibe. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I don't know. Is it communicated that it's Pennsylvania? Maybe I just missed that when I was watching the movie. I mean, no, you wouldn't know. It's like the license plates say Pennsylvania. I think his, like his, his badge says Pennsylvania or something like that. Is it, is it present day?

1:13:11Yeah. Ring cans, you know? Right. Of course. What was, um, when you were making the movie, was there anything that didn't work or you couldn't make happen that you had conceived of? Great question. Um, no, oddly, no. In fact, you know, the final, the day new mom, you know, with the final chase for the kids, you know, running around. So in the scripts that was actually just Gladys runs outside. They jump out the window, they get her in the front yard. And then as we were in prep, I was like, I just, I was like, you know what, dude, like, I think that if we go raising Arizona with this, you know, we go full point break, like it's going to really, people are going to walk out with a smile.

1:13:50And that was not a cool conversation to spring on your line producer and everybody. Like, I think we're going to need four more days, you know, and five more locations and we're going to destroy houses that we got to find and, and just please let me do this. But, but to everyone's credit, nobody was like giving me the hard pushback. Everyone just kind of like this, this is going to hurt, but we're going to make it work. And thank God we did. I honestly think that it was, I think it changed the movie. I mean, two things about that. I do want to hear you talk about it a little bit because it is absolutely thrilling.

1:14:23However, you said you're not writing a lot of laugh lines, but there's literally a cutaway to a guy mowing a lawn and the kids run through the yard. And of course, obviously I knew that was going to be funny. That's a great, that's a great joke moment. You know, you said Raising Arizona. And I shot that scene twice. I shot that scene twice. What do you mean? Because the first time I shot it, I shot it with a guy who just wasn't coming together and I was not happy with how it worked. And then my boom op, who's like this metal head, Marty, what's up, Marty? He's like, you know, sleeve tattoos and like metal.

1:14:47And I was, but I could just, I was like, if I put a flannel shirt on this guy, he's gonna look right. You know, he's gonna look like somebody out of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. And I was like, let's, I was like, can I just shoot that again with Marty? And again, they were like, this is, come on, Zach. But they let me, and I'm glad we did. Cause you know, Marty, my boom op was definitely the right dude for that. I mean, it's a great, very small break in an otherwise very, very exciting final stretch of the movie. You know, I noticed you have a, another, a credit on the score. And yeah, I think I listened to the score yesterday while preparing for this, like a psycho.

1:15:23It's a very weird thing to just listen to standalone, not exactly the most melodic thing in the world, but it is like very, very involving and effective. and I thought maybe you could tell me a little bit about one what you do in that process and what you were thinking with with um your collaborators so my collaborators are my two like childhood best friends Ryan and Hayes Holiday they're brothers I've been in a band with them forever like we you know we're in a band in college and you know we got back together and when they moved out to LA and we played a lot of music together we have we share a musical mind and they're wildly talented guys.

1:15:58They're way better. They're way more talented than me. But what I know about those guys is that I can communicate like psychically with them when I want. And so, um, you know, this process was, I kind of know what the music should be for every scene. And, and with them, I can just be like, dude, uh, take that little hand thing that, you know, we all worship and like sprinkle in a little bit of this weird song that we've all heard before. And it should be kind of like, and they can just do it. They can just like, do what I want, what I have in my head. And so some of the songs, some of the songs in there, I did write and perform myself and some of the songs they wrote and performed all themselves.

1:16:33And then some of the songs are just kind of like all three of us just kind of like jamming together. And, um, I'm very happy with it. You know, I think it's, I think it's a, it's a cool score. It's what I wanted, you know? And, um, so yeah, I, and, and I'm going to use those guys again and again, cause I think they're just, they're so brilliant and, uh, yeah, I got I like it. It's really effective. I've also had at least two people now say to me when we were talking about the movie, as soon as Beware of Darkness hit, I knew that I was going to be, I was going to love this, like that there is like a tone set.

1:17:02Um, you only had, there's only a handful of needle drops in the movie, but can you just talk about how you made those choices? Well, as I was writing, I was listening to some, some music and Beware of Darkness came on when I was like in the writing process, you know? So I, you know, I vomit 70 pages out in LA, right that are a mess and then i go to my manager's house who lives in the woods in the east coast and i just am alone for about three weeks i don't do anything but wake up right eat right sleep that's it so in that process i was over there and i i was listening to beware of darkness and and i was like this is it it was just like it was just like a a bolt from the blue i was like there's no ambiguity this is the this is the song that will play in the opening montage that song cost i can't i'm not going to tell you, but it hurt.

1:17:45It really, we, that hurt to get that song in this movie, but I think it's worth it. And then we have Percy Sledge and we have a handsome family song. I really like the, that, that handsome family song is like a song that has just been like really important to me for a long time. Um, yeah, I liked it. The music is melancholy in this, you know, I don't want the movie to be melancholy, but I like that there is like a blue undertone to everything. It feels right. You're making a Resident Evil movie. Yeah. How are you feeling about that? Pretty, pretty pumped. It's going to be not at all like Barbarian and Weapons.

1:18:20It's going to be just a rock 'em sock 'em. It's for me to play. It's for me to turn my brain off and just make like a Evil Dead 2, like get crazy with the camera. Austin Abrams, who played James, is going to be my guy. So it's just Austin is the movie. I love on. we had an amazing thing together and, and I think it's, it's a weird, fun, just like wild, wild story. And, um, yeah, it's not, it's not going to, it's not doing any of this, like shifting and reinventing itself. It's like this movie follows a person from point A to point B. And, uh, and it's, so it's weird in that way that it's just like a real time foot journey where you just go deeper and deeper into the depths of hell.

1:19:04Um, and it's really like a love letter to the games because I love those games. And, um, and so it's, it's kind of my kind of homage to them. Indulge me for one second on this. Um, one of my favorite things about your first two movies is that they are exactly what I am looking for at the movies, which is original and, you know, intoxicating suspense with great performances and laughs and pretty much something that is indebted to a lot, but unlike anything I've ever seen before. That's like, that's my Oh my God. Well, that's the nicest thing I've heard in this process. It's true, man. And it is, it is something that I really care about and that I really dig.

1:19:44It's literally why I'm doing the show. Resident Evil is IP and we're in the IP era. Sure. Okay. Fair. However, and balance that, like how many understand it? Yeah. Resident Evil of IP. I've never seen a Resident Evil movie. Oh, wow. I've never seen one. And, and I played the games obsessively. this is a story that comes from a healthy creative place. This is a story that I would have wanted to write, whether I got resident evil, the IP or not. I just so happened to be able to, you know, to have these resident evil people be down. And so I get to play in their sandbox and I'm honored to, and I'm stoked that I get to tell a story that I actually love.

1:20:28I don't need to do this. You know, I'm in a, I'm in a healthy enough place where I can go make a different original movie and it's fine. I'm doing it because I think this movie is going to be fucking awesome. And so, you know, I get that it's IP and I get that there's people who are going to be like, why? And I hope that my hope is that when you see Resident Evil, you'd be like, no, I get it, dude. That was awesome. You have my trust. I'm not questioning you. It is curious to me, though, because I think there is an urge for when someone emerges in the way that you have in the last few years or kind of like, keep going, keep pushing, keep forcing studios to keep making movies like weapons, you know?

1:21:01And I tell you this right after Resident Evil. I mean, I'm working right now. I have a script that I was alluding to. It's a sci-fi thing. It's my favorite thing. And I'm probably going to hit the ground running right after Resident Evil and go get into that, you know? And so I'm definitely like, I have more original things in me, you know? But I consider Resident Evil an original thing. And I think you will too when you see it. It's not, you know, so, yeah. I don't know what else to say. You have my trust. I'm just, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. Just something that is, I don't say, I know you're not giving me.

1:21:34I'm talking to you, but I'm also talking to, to the haters. Imaginary haters out there. So, yeah. Zach, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? You're traveling, you're seeing, you're around the world. Any plane movies? What do you, what do you got? Oh man. I mean, and I've seen so much great stuff lately. Let me, hang on. I want to give you such a good answer, but I'm worried that I'm going to just like blow this. Cause I didn't think about this in advance. Um, Oh, you know, you know what? I really enjoyed the, the, the Jaws 50 year anniversary Jaws doc.

1:22:07I thought that was like so fun. You know what I love, dude? I loved how vulnerable he was about being traumatized by that process and how he had to go and like cry for a while and like heal. And he's still, it's still a sore subject. And it just, I was so like nourished by that because it's like, dude, I really went through the ringer making weapons. You know, there was there, I had a collapse, honestly, near the end. I had to, I really did like my body kind of failed on me. I was exhausted. We're doing six day weeks, double shifts. Me and Larkin were shooting with the crew and then we'd wrap the crew and then shoot with second unit into the night, six day weeks, dude.

1:22:41And I, at a certain point, I just kind of like, I crashed like in a weird way that I've never crashed before. And it was hard. And I had really awful dreams about being on set for like almost a month after. And it was, it was gnarly. And to hear somebody have that and to, to, to know that like this guy had a truly miserable time making a movie. And yet he made arguably what many people would call the greatest movie ever made. Not the greatest film ever made to be, you know, but the greatest movie ever made. I'm not the first person to make that distinction, but, um, you know, it doesn't, you know, you can make something really wonderful and suffer all the way through.

1:23:16And, and, and you don't have to suffer all the way through. I don't think that's a prerequisite, but I was just really encouraged that like, you know, um, the process is the process and the result is separate. And I think that's, that was just really cool to, to hear from a master. I really liked that. You did remind me of one last thing I wanted to ask you about because all the crazy physical media heads are like, when will I get the barbarian 4k? They're really mad. I joined their chorus and I have, I have banged the drum and made phone calls and tried my best to get some sort of physical media and I'm not making headway.

1:23:48And it kind of bumps me out. I only ask because, you know, part of the relationship that we built with Jaws, obviously it was not just watching it at home, but like the special features and stuff and the documentaries and all the stuff that was attached to learning about the making of that movie. Your movies, it would be fun to watch and learn and see the things that you did in your movies too. You know, there's a mythologizing that is kind of important when you get to a certain stage as a filmmaker. I mean, I love watching the making of sometimes as much as watching the movie. I bought the panic room DVD and I watched all three of them.

1:24:22And I think those things are amazing. I like the prep and the posts and the whole deal. You know, I, I like watching David Fincher talk about how we're going to open a floor safe for 17 minutes. You know, it is like, to me, that's great. So I, you know, selfishly, I want people to watch me boss other people around and look cool. You know what i mean but uh first of all we don't have any footage like that of barbarian because nobody cared enough um but uh but you know we did do special features those special features are available on the itunes purchase so you there's a there's a commentary and there's the featurette and stuff like that but but i hear you man i i would love it to be physical zach you're the best congrats on weapons this is very exciting you're the best son i you don't know how important it is to me to do this with you it means a lot to me i really love i love your mind and i really love what you're doing.

1:25:11So thanks for having me. The same goes 2X for me. Thanks, man. Good luck with weapons, dude. Cheers.

1:25:22Thanks to Zach Kreger. Thank you to Brian Raftery. Please stay tuned on this feed for Mission Accomplished. It's an awesome show. And I know if you love movies and stories about making of movies and how they fit into the culture at large here in this country and abroad. You will find that story fascinating. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. I wanted to send a special shout out to Sam Birdwistle, who's been helping us with research and guiding us through the 25 for 25 project this summer. He's been a great help. Thank you to Sam. And we are taking a break, as I said on the show, for the next few weeks.

1:25:57I'm really excited to be taking a break. I'm probably going to have a slightly healthier relationship to watching movies and thinking about movies over that break. I'm really fired up though to get back and get out to the fall festival season. I really want to have a really great fourth quarter on the show with Amanda. And I'm pumped about a couple of the movies I've already seen that I can't talk about yet. And a couple of the movies that I will be seeing in the fall. And it's going to be PTA September when we get back to man. So just don't forget. Great things ahead. Have a great summer. Thank you as always for listening and watching this show.

1:26:32It means a lot to us. We'll see you again soon.