Warning: The following contains spoilers for Weapons.

Weapons‘ director reveals whether his new horror flick is based on a true story. From Barbarian filmmaker Zach Cregger, Weapons follows the mysterious disappearance of 17 children from the same classroom. Having received a near-perfect RT score from critics, the movie made impacted audiences, with many viewers naming it one of the best horror movies of recent years.

As seen in Weapons‘ trailer, the narrative starts with the claim that this is a true story. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cregger broke down his writing process and addressed whether it was based on a real event.

The filmmaker revealed that the writing of the film took place after the death of a friend. While “the final chapter” is nearly “autobiographical,” Cregger said, the filmmaker also confirmed that the plot is fictional. Read his comment below:

I was in post on Barbarian, and my best friend died in an accident that was really hard to understand. [Writing] was just like an emotional reaction to that. I was spared, because of my emotional pain, of writing from a place of ambition. I was writing from a place of catharsis. Writing where the process is the reward. Not to write a movie, not to write my next project, but to write because I needed to get this venom out. I started typing; I had no idea what the story was going to be. I literally went line by line.

This is a true story. What is it? This teacher came to school and none of the kids were there. Okay, why? Yeah, they all ran away the night before. Okay, where’d they go? Nobody knows. Stephen King has that amazing metaphor where he’s like, “You need to be a paleontologist, and you’re unearthing the dinosaur one bone at a time, but you don’t know what the dinosaur is.” That’s a beautiful way to create for me. Remove result from the process and just be discovery.

The final chapter of this movie with Alex and the parents, that’s autobiographical. I’m an alcoholic. I’m sober 10 years; my father died of cirrhosis. Living in a house with an alcoholic parent, the inversion of the family dynamic that happens. The idea that this foreign enтιтy comes into your home, and it changes your parent, and you have to deal with this new behavioral pattern that you don’t understand and don’t have the equipment to deal with.

But I don’t care if any of this stuff comes through, the alcoholic metaphor is not important to me. I hope people have fun, honestly. It’s not really my business what people make of the movie. I have nothing to say about it, because the movies should speak for itself, and if I have to comment on what people should get from it, then I’ve failed as a filmmaker.

What This Means For Weapons

Weapons served as an emotional outlet for the director after his best friend’s death. In that way, while the plot is believable and suspenseful, the movie’s real-life inspiration has less to do with true crime and more with Cregger’s childhood and his family’s dealings with alcoholism.

Since its release, the movie has received overall positive reviews from critics and fans alike, with many praising the nuanced character dynamics, often rare in the horror genre. At the climax of Weapons, it’s revealed that Gladys has zombified Alex’s parents and is trying to collect the life forces of the 17 children to sustain her own life. ​​​​​​

Even though the last chapter of the movie drew inspiration from Cregger’s experience growing up with alcoholic parents, the filmmaker also pointed out how it served as a part of the movie’s storytelling instead of a key metaphor that ties to the theme.

Our Take On Weapons’ Story

In ScreenRant‘s review of Weapons, Zachary Moser explained that Weapons is “more Alex’s film,” and through the character’s eyes, viewers are introduced to the problematic adults, such as Justine and Archer. Cregger’s comment offers some insight into such character dynamics and arcs in the movie and also explains his creative process behind the twist.

Instead of having it planned out before he began writing, the filmmaker allowed the plot to unfold naturally as he wrote, which resulted in Weapons‘ shocking twist that had the audience clapping their hands in theaters.

On a more personal level, its real-life inspiration served as a foundation for the movie. Even though the movie went into the territory of supernatural horror, its horror is still grounded in the monsters in real life.