We need to discuss Amy Madigan's performance in the new horror film "Weapons"

Saw it last night.

Definitely a wild ride. I got a good jump scare in one scene and was laughing my ass off in others....especially the ending with Madigan.

Not at all the film I was expecting so I was happily surprised. Benedict Wong's boyfriend/husband was cute. But that dinner he made. Were they really going to eat all those hot dogs?

British critic Kim Newman wants an Oscar nom for her in this

Perfect blur of hilariously camp and terrifyingly uncanny. Really unsettling performance. AUNT GLADYS needs to be a drag staple.

Is she playing Carrot Top?

I love her! Proud Marquette alum and rider of Ed Harris' no doubt great dick

Does anyone have a clip that's not a spoiler?

The Academy never awards Chicago Actresses! Especially those who age naturally!

r6 you can't really go beyond the basic premise without spoiling.

That trailer looks fucking weird and dark. Just like Madigan's last movie, about a wendigo in a very dark room.

And I mean dark in the literal sense. I couldn't see a fucking thing.

i'm taking mother to see it this weekend, it'll be my second viewing.

[quote]Perfect blur of hilariously camp and terrifyingly uncanny.

That's what was so brilliant about it. She effortlessly could go from one to the other. That scene at the table with the parents...

The crackhead was also good.

R11 i think those parts were inspired by the south park episode where butters’ grandma abuses him. The vocal tone is similar.

Totally R3. I was completely giddy during her main entrance scene in the principal's office. Such a fantastic, kooky, and scary performance.

R1 I'm not sure how this ties into any themes in the movie or whether or not it was intentional, but a YouTube reviewer whose review I watched pointed out that all of the main characters in the film seem to have clear addictions/afflictions: Julia Garner's character is an alcoholic, the police officer is a recovering alcoholic/ostensible sex addict, the young homeless kid is a tweaker, and it's suggested that the principal is a glutton (there's the absurd hotdog scene later on as you mention, but there's also the scene in the grocery store where we're introduced to the husband who is helping him pick out different junk food cereals). The only one I'm not sure of is Josh Brolin's character—I suppose his "weakness" is his misguided vengeance against Garner, though maybe there is another character flaw that I can't recall off the top of my head.

R14, Brolin seemed to be a bully which is probably where his son learned it from.

R14 they’re all supposed to represent facets of zach cregger’s grief over the death of trevor moore. That’s why the kids leave at 2:17 am. That’s when Trevor fell and died.

R6 Madigan's role in this hasn't received much press/advertising attention I think because showing too much could jeopardize the film's plot reveals. I think they've kept her role (smartly) oblique, aside from that ghastly shot of her in the Baby Jane makeup we see in the trailer. Don't be fooled, though—she is unforgettable in it and easily gives the most memorable performance.

Cregger will be writing and directing a reboot of the Resident Evil franchise. Those movies are so awful, but some of the games are funnily camp and have some good world building and drama. If he can make that franchise a hit with critics, he's going to be in high demand. He's perfect for it - a nerd with a good sense of humor and a high level of taste. I'm looking forward to the hearing more about a supposed sci-fi script he's working on too. Jinkx Monsoon as Aunt Gladys on stage when?

The short dialogue where she explains wanting water in a bowl is hilarious.

The film came out last night.

“We need to discuss”

Most haven’t seen it.

And the movie was silly.

For a straight man, Zach Cregger really has a gay sense of humor, because Aunt Gladys is a celluloid camp monster of the highest order. The second this bitch walked onscreen, I felt my homosexuality surging through my bones. Few heterosexual men understand this type of humor, let alone having the ability to write a character like her.

r20 he performed in drag a ton on his sketch comedy show 'whitest kids u know'

Madigan reminded me of elderly Bette Davis.

I loved it. It looked like a graphic novel. Amy certainly has left *her* imprint on the wicked witch archetype.

Just watched a Thai cam version and it's good... once it gets going. Which is my issue with most horror movies, I guess.

The witch's wig was clearly inspired by Kathy Griffin, which made me cackle.

Saw it at one of the 2:17 premiere showings on Thursday. Great movie.

r24 midwit nerds have the opposite impression. they loved the serious and logical beginning and thought the camp and absurd ending absolutely ruined it. i watched one reviewer hop on about how the movie was ruined because the internal logic of the branch artifacts didn't make perfect sense to him.

This is the guy who played Wong's husband, right? Cute.

Was in Screams Queens opposite JLC and in Ratched previously.

Saw it today. Overall, it mostly works but holy shit it's slow and frankly it's not as scary as the marketing suggests. Things do pick up though and the ending is a satisfying one. Bold move releasing this in the middle of summer when it might've fared better around Halloween but I think there's a chance it could be Freakier Friday for the number one slot at the box office.

Yeah, it's slow as hell in the first half (third?). I did like the conceit of going back in time and resuming the story through other characters. Haven't seen that done before.

The Thai people I watched this with were all cringing their asses off in the unlocked car scene. A nightmare come to life, and a masterclass in suspenseful horror.

R29: Yeah everyone in my row went nuts during the scene when Alex's Mom (under Gladys' spell) cuts Justine's hair.

R29 he should have been more explicit about the context of grief and the death of trevor moore, it makes the first half a lot more impactful and cohesive.

R27 i only know him as charlie’s molesting uncle in it’s always sunny

Alden Ehrenreich looks hot in a policeman uniform.

Agreed. And the stache needs to stay.

R32 Definitely not the same actor

If you're dedicated, you go there.

It’s beating FF and is coming in number 1 at the box office with 40 mil, R28, well over projections. It also landed an A- Cinemascore, which is extremely rare for horror. It’s already made its budget back.

She was giving me Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby vibes. Loved it, and loved Barbarian.

You may not understand everything that happened by the end but it's still a fun movie.

Barbarian was ok til the giant woman showed up at the end. Ridiculous and ruined the film.

Weapons only kept getting better as it continued and the ending was incredible.

Of all the ratty Korean wigs available to her, she really went with the carrot orange idiot fringe one, with bouncy tresses WAY too youthful for someone her age.

Carrie Gibson was like, "what the fuuuuck" when she came over to the principal's office. She could tell immediately something was off.

I've liked Amy Madigan since the first movie I saw her in - Field of Dreams. I've kept up with her through Gone, Baby, Gone and I just can't see her in OP's picture! I can't wait to see Weapons just to see the transition!

I felt it was all an allegory about addiction and the harm it can inflict on children. So many addicts in the movie — alcohol, drugs, junk food.

HATED that the gays were the first to die, and so gruesomely.

But what a great film. The last 25 minutes are fun.

I think the horror and comedic aspects work equally well. The plot is slowly revealed with all the characters' povs. I never would've guessed the "twist" and who was behind it all.

I don't know why but the actor who played the junkie reminded me of Chalamet.

This just in! Amy Madigan hates the gays!

He was amazing, r45.

With Saturday estimates now coming in, it appears Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” will come in further ahead of expectations than first thought.

After snagging $18.2 million on Friday (including previews), the film looks set to only fall 24-27% on Saturday, and so estimates for the overall domestic opening weekend have now been revised upwards to $40-43 million.

Additionally, it has been revealed that IMAX and PLF screens account for a massive 34% of that haul. The film also landed an A- CinemaScore, rare for horror movies.

Every gay male audience member's inner monologue when Gladys enters stage left: "WHO is this diva?"

Looking back, the mom taking Julia Garner's hair instead of just strangling her in that car while she was sleeping, so Wong could come after her later in broad daylight, was campy as well.

I'm an idiot, it just clicked with me that this is the same woman who played Iris in Carnivale. She great in Carnivale and great in this, and married to Ed Harris.

Kathy Griffin's and Ronald McDonald's cursed child.

This movie is what Megan 2 wanted to be for this summer, but failed. Especially now that the gays have embraced the witch character as their own. Prequel NOW! Make several actually, taking us right back to the Oregon trail, henny.

[quote]I don't know why but the actor who played the junkie reminded me of Chalamet.

I didn’t clock that while watching the movie but holy shit!

Love the woman who loves Ed Harris!

Chalamet from Wish. I liked him.

Jinxx Monsoon?

I didn't realize the junkie played the kid who gouged out Carl's eye on The Walking Dead.

The trailer didn’t make it seem like a black comedy AT ALL. In fact it kinda reminded me of the good horror/thrillers of the late 90s like Sixth Sense. I really want to see this film.

I wish they gave her some exposition — who actually is this woman and where did she really come from?

She is the mother's aunt.

I'm assuming that if she had gotten enough "youth," she would have reverted to some sort of young creature. I think she was some kind of demon/succubus/witch thing.

Which is why we need her lore explored! R60

Maybe it’s all totally arbitrary, but I’m still wondering what the deal was with Gladys’ potted tree. Obviously it was something she used to perform her rituals, but a lot of this was left quite vague.

R46 shut up Larry, Amy is a friend of the gays

R62 I thought it was her tree of life where she collected the energy of the children to renew herself. Fuck if I know though.

[quote] a lot of this was left quite vague.

It was a fun movie but not one that stands up to a lot of scrutiny. My friend and I were discussing it over lunch after watching it and there are a lot of things that don't really make sense

Can you share what you and your friend discussed R65? What didn't make sense to you?

I had zero trouble just going with it. I loved it. The ending was deservedly satisfying.

There were a weird amount of gay innuendos in nearly every scene from the principal's POV. Fruity pebbles at the store, his decor being fruit, him and his husband eating a tray of hot dogs. He was wearing a Mickey tee shirt and his husband was wearing Minnie. It was a little excessive.

And they were watching a nature doc in the middle of the day, which straight couples surely don't do.

There were a few issues with the movie, but I still loved it. For example, the blonde hair that she wrapped around the stick was clearly not the same hair that was cut from Julia Garner's head. Also, when Brolin and Garner are authentic hospital, where were the police?

*at the hospital

Not R65, but as much as I enjoyed this movie, it requires a pretty substantial suspension of disbelief. Spoilers ahead, since I guess we're going there . . .

It's hard to believe that the aunt would have ever gotten away with as much as she did, for a lot of reasons. Abducting an entire classroom full of kids in such a public way already brings a lot of attention, which is acknowledged, but her nephew, as the only one who doesn't vanish, escapes scrutiny pretty easily.

Meanwhile, his parents essentially vanish from public view at the same time, he's suddenly coming home alone with bags full of soup, the windows of his house are papered over, the house feels derelict, and despite all of this in a town full of hysteria, no one seems to notice. None of the neighbors or investigators take of note? The parents' friends and employers don't find it strange that they're also gone in the middle of all of this?

The film also establishes the prevalence of home cameras, and yet no one seems to have captured any evidence of where the children may have gone, especially since we find out they were running down the street to the house together very openly. None of the investigators thought to examine which direction the children were running off to?

I liked this movie quite a bit, but there are some huge gaps in logic to get past, and I'm only touching on some of the most obvious ones. Ultimately the pay off is worth it, but a solid editing pass could have gone a long way.

To do that, Cregger began to separate the narrative into chapters that filled in the blanks slowly, one character’s P.O.V. at a time. (He credits Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 movie Magnolia as the role model for how he wanted Weapons to play.) And he began to shake the fear of making it personal. He mentions that he strongly identifies with Garner’s character, the teacher whose classroom is the only connection among all of the missing kids, and is an alcoholic; Cregger himself has dealt with the disease and has 10 years of sobriety under his belt. He understands the anguish felt by Brolin’s character, a father who’s attempting to wrap his head around his child being there one moment and inexplicably gone the next.

And in writing the section told from the perspective of Alex, the one third-grader who doesn’t go missing, Cregger says he tapped directly into his own past. “That is straight-up, like — I lived that chapter as a kid,” he admits. “Again, I don’t know if people need to know this going in, but… it’s very much what it’s like to have a parent who’s an addict, and the child has to become the caretaker as this sort of foreign thing comes in, and…” The look of horror is back. “I’ll leave it at that.”

R72 she brought the cops into the house to search everything, remember? I think it’s facing a cross street with a wide yard, meaning no cameras on the front door. It’s also plausible that her powers include confusion, suggestion, or that it could interfere with electronics that are near her domain. I think it’s really unnecessary to get into the details, that’s for “lore” focused storytelling like Star Wars and whatnot. This is an absurd fairy tale.

[quote]The film also establishes the prevalence of home cameras, and yet no one seems to have captured any evidence of where the children may have gone, especially since we find out they were running down the street to the house together very openly. None of the investigators thought to examine which direction the children were running off to?

I took that to be perfectly in line with the movie being a metaphor for school shootings. Which can also happen in privileged neighbourhoods with helicopter parents. Same for the authorities not responding appropriately, and people moving on quickly from the whole class going missing.

I just assumed at a certain point they couldn’t track it. Not enough cameras around Gladys’ lair and the home was inspected anyway. The newspaper makes sense for a family anticipating dealing with lookie-loos.

behind the scenes photos of amy as gladys

I loved the Suddenly Last Summer vibe at the end. I was okay with the parents disappearing from public view and the papered-up windows. I see that as a reaction to the hysteria in the town. I assumed that the tree was Gladys' familiar. What I didn't quite get was whether Gladys turned them all into zombies or if they were in some other kind of trancelike state.

There's a very brief sex scene but no nudity from Alden.

I read there was a whole sequence with Gladys's back story. Hopefully will make it to the DVD.

I want an entire film from Gladys’s perspective.

Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” didn’t just open domestically this weekend; it also launched in 73 global markets.

As a result, the film pulled in $42.5 million domestically and $27.5 million overseas for a $70 million worldwide debut. With its tight $38 million budget, the film is already set for a quite profitable run in cinemas.

He discussed the possibilities with Madigan as she shaped her performance. “I presented Amy with two options of her origin story. I was like, ‘You can pick one of these two,’” Cregger says. “They’re very different options. And was like, ‘You don’t have to tell me, but it is either this or that.’ I don’t know which one she picked.”

One is that she was once a regular person, but her spells and corrosive actions are a last-ditch effort to heal herself of a life-threatening illness. In that scenario, he said, “She had to adopt this methodology that she uses out of a place of emergency to keep herself alive. I won’t say any more than that.”

The other option was that maybe she’s not a person at all. The off-kilter red wigs and outlandish make-up suggest Gladys is some other kind of creature, trying to simulate what she thinks a normal human being looks like. But she’s doing it very badly. “That’s an interesting way to think about it. I like that a lot,” Cregger says.

This was one of the possibilities he presented to Madigan, which he framed in the context of Javier Bardem’s Oscar-winning role as the uncanny, unstoppable killer in No Country for Old Men. “I talked with her about the Anton Chigurh character. You get this sense Anton Chigurh is potentially an immortal who has come to New Mexico and is doing an impression of the people around him,” Cregger says. “That’s why his haircut is so wrong and his clothes are clean, because he’s doing a bad impression of these Southwesterners.”

I'm assuming that Gladys costumes will be big this Halloween.

She reminded me of Eva Moskowitz (Mrs. Mouth) come to life! I actually walked past her doppelganger on 6th Ave and 44th st in NYC last week going to work. But I hadn't seen the movie yet. The poor woman was long past retirement but I could tell she got dolled up everyday to go to work as some admin or clerk in a law firm with a bunch of other old geezers. She had about two pounds of make up on and outlandish eye shadow. My hands were full or I'd have pulled out my phone for a picture. She had on heels and the whole outfit from the 60's. I bet back in the day she was Va Va Voom.

I bet they filmed all of Josh Brolin's scenes in one week to keep costs down.

R86 He was an executive producer, and did have to come back to do the exact same things again for the different vignettes. Nothing was reused.

I got the impression that Aunt Gladys may be quite old (like over 150 years) as she kind of slips up at one point and refers to someone having “consumption” which is a very antiquated term for tuberculosis.

She could have been doing this kind of thing for decades, moving from town to town visiting distant relatives and sucking the life force out of the local young.

Loved her performance and the film.

She is great in this part at the end!

Gladys is also giving the old, decrepit Elisabeth (Demi) in The Substance.

R89. Except she's not shaking her saggy tits to a TV screen.

Did she say at one point that the mother was her baby sister? Someone above mentioned that she’s the mother’s aunt, but I think I remember her telling the principal that.

Cregger is mulling an Aunt Gladys prequel which is what I desired.

R91 My theory is that's bs, and she already hypnotized the mom to some extent. It seems like the dad is uncomfortable about something more than just the typical despair over in-laws.

Or the entity invaded what was her actual older sister's body. But she's clearly like 35 years older than that mom.

The junkie from this movie is going to star in Cregger's original Resident Evil reboot.

'Cregger’s upcoming “Resident Evil” reboot is rumored to follow a hapless courier (Abrams) tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital. He soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must fight through hordes of mutated creatures to survive.'

Cregger said he's a massive fan of the games and particularly wants to capture the slow feeling of dread that comes from the actual source games. Like, being faced with a horribly creepy dark corridor, you know something bad will happen that you don't have the resources to really deal with, but you are compelled to move forward. He hasn't seen any of the RE films and insinuated he's really turned off by the action movie style.

There is already talk about an Aunt Gladys prequel.

R93, the dad mentions them having a difficult history with Gladys. She didn't bother coming to their wedding. It's certainly possible Gladys inserted herself into their lives by some mystical means, but there's not much to support that beyond speculation. That's part of the problem with not establishing some internal consistency with how magic works in a given narrative. You can otherwise just say, "A wizard did it."

I like that whatever Gladys is, and whatever her powers are, wasn't explained in detail. All we know is that she needs the life force of young people to survive, and that the tree is either the source of or aids her powers. I'm fine without knowing any more than that; let imaginations decide.

R96 Oh, I totally forgot all about that. I definitely need to see it again, I think I missed quite a few details. I get distracted by one particular element and sometimes miss dialogue. I also missed some bits at the end because I was covering my eyes as soon as ole girl took out that peeler.

R98 MARY!

Director is rebooting Resident Evil again, it just started shooting in Prague.

Austin Abrams (r53) will play the lead in this. I already like him more than Timmy.

When Alex asks Gladys if she’ll go home when he helps her get the kids, Cregger said he interpreted Gladys’ reaction as pained and rejected. Like she somehow believed the boy would or could love her.

R97: She's a witch.

This on-set shot is everything

She was the weak link in Romero’s “The Dark Half.”

Loved her in the highly underrated Streets of Fire

His old sketch group rereleased one of their funniest sketches as a shout out to Weapons. I was a big fan of them in high school, it's crazy that Zach is so successful. Zach plays a director in the sketch. The tall guy is his friend who died in 2021.

The Vulture discussion about Amy Madigan's performance captures it perfectly with its opening sentence:

"Rarely does a character arrive onscreen as gay-guy-Halloween-costume-ready as Aunt Gladys in Weapons."

R102 yes, but is she a human who just happens to practice witchcraft or is she a demon pretending to be a human?

The antiquated reference she makes to "consumption" that R88 notes does make me think that Gladys is probably an ages-old witch who has been harvesting' life forces for some time. Like a vampire, I think the bitch has been around the block.