There was a much darker alternative ending to Weapons, and the director actually preferred it

Weapons has only been out for a week and it’s already fast becoming the biggest and most talked about horror film of the year. Director Zach Cregger proved that Barbarian, his first film and massive hit, was no fluke – Weapons is better in every capacity and once again serves up an excellent dark tale of suburban horror. Obviously, all good horror films have a good ending – and the final 10 minutes of Weapons are a shot of adrenaline to the veins and mix in terror with retribution and satisfaction. But now Weapons director Zach Cregger has explained that the film actually had an alternative ending that had to be changed right near the end of production, and he preferred it to the one that we saw in the finished movie.

Weapons spoilers ahead – duh!

Wait, what?

Ok, so the ending we got in Weapons showed Alex use Gladys’ power against her, and he manages to do a similar style of ritual that sends the 17 kids that Gladys had captured after the villain. As the kids chase Gladys through Maybrook, they eventually catch up to her and graphically rip her from limb to limb, killing her. Once Gladys is dead, the spell is broken and leaves most people who’ve been under her thrall extremely vacant and not the person they were before. The narration suggests that Alex goes on to be cared for by another family member because his parents get institutionalised and it says the children may eventually return to speaking again.

This film’s not exactly an easy watch

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But during an interview with Inverse, Zach Cregger explains that this wasn’t the original plan and his original way of ending it was darker. The Weapons alternative ending originally had no narration at all, just showing the vacant look on Archer’s son’s face. But Zach Cregger has revealed he had to change it after test audiences Weapons played to didn’t respond well to it.

He decided to still end it vaguely, but “give people a little more closure”. He explained “Originally, that voiceover that comes in at the end wasn’t even in there. I was not really into that idea. I wanted to just end it on [Matthew’s] look. But people were not stoked on that.

“There was no voiceover, and we just ended on the kid’s face. The lights went out and ‘Written and directed by Zach Cregger’ came up, and a woman in the theatre goes, ‘What the f*ck?’”

The ending to Weapons is already quite abrupt and sudden in the released version, but this alternative ending was even more so. To be honest, I’d have preferred Cregger’s ending. Show don’t tell!

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