‘Weapons’ Climactic Ferris Bueller Homage Was Completely Unintentional
This article contains spoilers for Weapons.
One of the biggest horror movies of the year so far is Weapons, written and directed by Zach Cregger, the filmmaker who gave us the terrifying Barbarian and the even more terrifying Miss March.
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Despite the fact that the movie begins with the tragic disappearance of several small children, who mysteriously exit their homes at 2:17 a.m., it still has a number of very funny scenes (including one in which Josh Brolin has the best possible reaction to a jump-scare). This makes sense since Cregger was a member of the Whitest Kids U’ Know, and it turns out that working with the sketch comedy troupe really did help him prepare to direct a grisly movie involving children and starring a mustachioed cop.
Some audience members have pointed out that Weapons is distinctly reminiscent of one of the biggest comedies of the ‘80s: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And not just because both movies are technically about kids missing school.
In the final moments of the movie, the group of abducted children are “weaponized” by Alex, who uses Aunt Gladys’ witchy magic against her. The kids chase Gladys out of her house and through neighbors’ yards, and even one house. Which isn’t too dissimilar from the ending of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in which he dashes through strangers’ yards in order to get home before his parents.
One key difference is that Ferris isn’t graphically torn to pieces at the end of the scene.
Cregger addressed this interpretation during an interview with ScreenRant. But the director seemed surprised by the comparison, because he was actually trying to emulate an entirely different classic ‘80s comedy: the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona.
After being asked if the ending was a “horrific homage” to the John Hughes comedy, Cregger responded, “No. No Ferris Bueller in here,” explaining that the “sequence is more of a Raising Arizona kind of thing.”
Raising Arizona, of course, features one of the all-time great movie foot chases, which finds Nicolas Cage’s H.I. McDunnough intruding on a random family’s home, after attempting to steal a pack of Huggies.
During an appearance on the Big Picture podcast, Cregger also noted that the chase from Point Break, which similarly finds dudes running through a strangers’ house, was another source of inspiration for the ending.
Even though Ferris Bueller’s Day Off didn’t really inspire Weapons, we have a feeling that the ultraviolent ending would work even better when accompanied by that “Oh, Yeah” song.
