Weapons star Josh Brolin argues horror film could be a "milestone experience" for viewers

Reports quickly emerged of a hotly-contested bidding war for its apparently spectacular script, and not long later there were rumblings of one of most narratively ambitious horror flicks of the decade.

We're now only days away from the film's release and the early reviews have more than backed up that initial hype.

Cregger's movie – which deals with events in a suburban US town after all but one student in a third-grade class suddenly and without explanation flee their homes one night – currently has the rare distinction of sitting on 100 per cent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes (from 40 reviews).

Meanwhile, in our own highly-positive four-star write-up, we called it "an unnerving, riveting and thunderously entertaining horror epic".

For star Josh Brolin, who plays the grief-stricken father of one of the missing kids, it was clear almost immediately that this was a project with a lot of potential.

"It was great reading that script – because you read a lot of scripts, not necessarily that are bad, but that just aren't as well designed as that one is," he told RadioTimes.com during an exclusive interview.

"So I was very intrigued to meet [Cregger]. I didn't know him, I hadn't seen Barbarian yet, I didn't know about the bidding war that they had and all that.

"So I went into it very kind of naive, which I loved, and I loved meeting him. I thought he was great. But my reaction to the script was a big reaction, given how well it was written, how well it was designed."

Former teen star Brolin has been acting for many decades, of course, and he says that he's occasionally seen directors "bulls**t their way through" early discussions in an attempt to get actors on board. With Cregger, though, he sensed right away that something was different.

"He just personalised it very quickly," he explained. "You know, there was a reason why he wrote this script. There's something very specific that all the characters are based on, and that was a reaction to something that happened to him in his life that was major. So when it got that personal that quick – and he was that willing to be that raw – it was very, very intriguing to me."

Brolin plays just one character in a patchwork of overlapping perspectives, with the film consisting of six chapters each following a different member of the community in the aftermath of the mass disappearance. And Julia Garner – who plays the teacher of the missing children – was similarly impressed after her early discussions with Cregger.

"The script was so clear... [and] he really knows what he wants," she said. "He has such a clear vision, he knows how to communicate but he's also extremely open at the same time, and patient and kind and all those things.

"And also he just kind of has this warmth about him that makes it very easy and trustworthy in a way that makes you feel safe – and that's very important, especially when you're acting."

"When I first met with him, the real takeaway for me is [that] he shared some of the personal experiences that went into this movie," added Alden Ehrenreich, who plays a local cop with whom Garner's character shares a romantic past.

"I had read this thing and had this reaction of, like... I'm not really a horror person. I don't love these movies typically. But there's something about this that's one of the best things I've ever read. And when I met with him and understood what he was writing about on this deep level, it made perfect sense."

He continued: "There's just something that distinguishes this movie from other movies in its field, because it just has this other ephemeral thing. You can't put your finger on it, but it just feels like the scope of the imagination and the emotional depth simultaneously are something you don't always get."

Weapons is a film best enjoyed with as little prior knowledge as possible about the places it ends up going; a huge part of the fun comes from watching the twisty narrative unfold as the mystery of the kids' whereabouts gradually unravels.

But ahead of release, horror fans have already been trying to piece things together from the footage glimpsed in trailers and other promotional materials, with all sorts of theories circulating online.

This is something that Brolin has very much enjoyed witnessing. "I mean, that's the fun of it," he explained. "It's like when a new book comes out, a new movie is coming out. You get into it, you want to figure it out. It's a puzzle that you can't necessarily figure out.

"And that happens with a new voice, with a new filmmaker, with a true visionary that's not being controlled by a studio and all that.

"And obviously everybody wants the same thing. Everybody wants the film to do well. But on top of that, which I think is more my thing and more Zach's thing, is you want people to have a milestone experience that they can look back on.

"And they were like, 'Do you remember when f**king Weapons came out? That was crazy!' Like, 'I remember that, and I saw that when I was 14,' or, 'I saw that when I was 23 and all that.' I think this has that potential.”

Weapons is released in UK cinemas from Friday 8th August.

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