If Zach Cregger explored the dingy basements of a Airbnb in Barbarian, he’s going bigger with his follow-up effort Weapons. His new horror movie has the US filmmaker rustling up the sleepy suburban town of Maybrook, a gloomy Pennsylvanian locale that feels like it belongs in a Stephen King novel.
Weapons starts off on one such gloomy night in Newport, more specifically at 2.17 am in the night when 17 elementary schoolers step out of their house, their arms stretched out, transfixed by an invisible power of sorts.
What happens next is a town crumbling into chaos. The school turn into a hunting ground for the missing children’s teacher (Julia Garner). The liquor store attracts all sorts of eerie visitors. And a particular gas station hosts a blood-oozing, eye-popping altercation that is crowd-pleasing shlock at its finest.
The burning question is: what happened to those children at 2.17 am? Once you know the answers, the question remains: is Maybrook, Pennsylvania real?
Where did they film Weapons?
It turns out that Maybrook is actually Atlanta, Georgia. Cregger’s brief to production designer Tom Hammock was to create ‘a small New Eastern town’.
For inspiration, Hammock studied the communities outside cities like Philadelphia, Cleveland and Cincinnati.
The production designer, who worked on Ti West’s stylish gonzo horror X and the ultra-maximalist Godzilla x Kong films, stuck closer to reality with this one. ‘[Zach] wanted everything to appear as normal as possible. He wanted the audience to buy into this town as being the most normal place in the world.’
Principal photography began in May 2024 in Atlanta, wrapping in July. But filming in midsummer in Georgia is a sweaty affair, especially on soundstages without air-conditioning. To combat the heat, dozens of yards of tubing were installed to supply A/C.
Where is the real Maybrook Elementary school?
Maybrook’s local elementary turns into a disturbing sight after the mass disappearance. While classes resume, the school is shrouded in memorial flowers, photographs, and banners to commemorate ‘the Maybrook 17’.
This school from Weapons is actually Brockett Elementary in Tucker, a city in Georgia a few miles outside Atlanta. The school’s mascot, a friendly-looking bobcat giving a thumbs up, looks reassuring after the gory chaos of Weapons.
On the busiest days of filming, the production would be home to more than 170 children. Child labour coordinators were enlisted to keep the kids engaged when not filming.
Now, coming to that gas station scene…
While the trailers and promos of Weapons were deliberately ominous, the film didn’t pull back from teasing that shockingly entertaining gas station scene. The one with a bloodied Benedict Wong running in a fit of unhinged frenzy and pinning down Julia Garner.
They filmed that sequence in unnerving daylight at a BP gas station in Covington, Georgia. The Weapons crew filmed there for three days, utilising both the filling stations and the adjacent To Go convenience store. Hopefully, those blood stains on the forecourt got hosed down.
Who stars in Weapons?
Julia Garner, the Ozark actress who was last seen as Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: First Steps, leads the cast as Justine, the troubled teacher of the class that went missing.
The cast also includes other MCU veterans like Thanos actor Josh Brolin and Benedict Wong who played the sorcerer Wong in Doctor Strange. Brolin stars as a grieving father driven to the brink of desperation while Wong plays the principal of Justine’s school.
Austin Abrams (Wolfs, Euphoria) stars as a homeless junkie who is chased by an adulterous short-tempered cop played by Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story, Fair Play). Newcomer Cary Christopher also shines as Alex, the only student in the class who doesn’t disappear.
Where can I watch Weapons?
It’s in cinemas worldwide now.