Josh Brolin on Why Weapons Isn’t Your Typical Horror Flick

Something isn’t right in the quiet town of Maybrook. One night, 17 elementary school students disappear without a trace—except for one. What follows is an unsettling mystery told through shifting perspectives in Weapons, the latest horror-thriller from director Zach Cregger.

Josh Brolin plays Archer, the desperate father of one of the missing children, who sets out on his own when the town’s search efforts fall short. In this conversation, Brolin opens up about what drew him to the role, why Zach Cregger is one of the most exciting directors working today, and what makes Weapons more than just another horror film.

"With Zach, you have a really intelligent, sensitive, emotional filmmaker who’s got a great knack for understanding design and storytelling," says Brolin. 

What drew you to the film Weapons?

Josh Brolin: I think what’s happened in the trajectory of my career is after 40 years, I’ve started to look at things a little bit differently. This kind of came up, and I hadn’t seen Barbarian, but I read the script for Weapons and I thought the design of the script was really compelling, really interesting. And I kept going back to it. But I was looking for the wrong thing. I was like, “Nah.” Then, every time I went back to it, it got more and more interesting.

Then I met with Zach Cregger, and I felt like he was an open book. He was kind of like, “This is me. This is who I am. This is where I’m at in my life. This is what I’ve gone through. This is what the script came from.” And that was the most interesting, which he alluded to in our first meeting and then expanded when we met again—that each character represented a part of him dealing with the death of this close friend of his. And I was very moved by that. And so, that made it personal for me.

But I think ultimately, from a professional standpoint, the design of the script was exceptional, because it reminded me of early Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, the kind of films that I loved. And I was like, “I like that this guy is obviously influenced by great people and is making it his own.” And then I saw Barbarian and I really liked it.

[Zach Cregger] is a very sensitive director. Because of that sensitivity, he’s very present, and he wants the work to stay personal to him. I like that kind of pressure, as opposed to working with someone who's just making a movie to make a lot of money. I mean, we all want to make money, but this is personal to him.

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Who is Archer and what makes him a compelling or relatable character?

JB: I think Archer represents the current everyman—somebody who lives in potential resentment, doesn’t really seek solutions, and stays stuck in a perpetual problem. So, whether he’s right or he’s wrong, however he deals with any situation is usually the worst way. And that’s okay. You need that, because it does represent. It’s those mornings that you wake up and go, “What’s the matter with humanity?” And then, as the day goes on, you find things where you go, “Oh, we’re not all bad.” Archer represents that morning you wake up and you go, “What the f*** is the matter with humanity?” He’s at the nucleus of that issue.

But then, I think that there are moments where you see there’s a form of humility that starts to creep in. When he thinks he sees his son and he kind of breaks down and says, “I’ll be a better father, and I’ll be a better...” And I think those are little moments of hope. You realize that, “Oh, this guy has—whether it’s cultural or societal or whatever—has developed one layer after the other of stuff that’s unneeded.” When it comes down to it, he’s just a dad who wants his kid back, and he wants to do better.

'Weapons' tells the story of 17 kids from the same classrom who vanish at the exact same time one night.

Are you a fan of horror?

JB: I saw The Blob when I was four. There’s a scene where the blob comes out of the toilet, and I couldn’t sit on a toilet for a year. Back then, my mother was a horror fanatic and she read and watched a lot of horror. I remember I Spit On Your Grave, and movies of that nature. But I liked them. And I remember seeing Friday the 13th in the theater and not being able to close my eyes that night because my eyelids were shaking so bad. But I was a big horror fanatic indirectly when I was a kid and really loved it.

What makes Weapons stand out?

JB: That Zach’s a unique filmmaker. I think some of the stuff we’re seeing right now just seems rote or pandering. With Zach, you have a really intelligent, sensitive, emotional filmmaker who’s got a great knack for understanding design and storytelling. You have compelling characters—all of them representing something essential to the whole. I think this creates a new genre that’s emerging, with filmmakers like Ari Aster as well. It’s really fascinating to see such interesting and smart filmmakers approaching the same genre differently, and all of that is cyclical.

'Weapons' opens only in cinemas and IMAX August 6.