Warning: contains major spoilers for Weapons
For all its terrifying moments and nightmarish images, Weapons detonates all that tension in its final few minutes with a raucous bout of slapstick comedy: having wrought havoc on Maybrook, Pennsylvania and mind-controlled an entire class of schoolchildren, witchy Gladys has the tables turned on her. Spectacularly. Before she knows it, her magic is used against her, and she’s being chased by all those kids across lawns and through houses, the youngsters sprinting full-pelt in the single-minded pursuit of tearing her limb-from-limb. Which they do, gorily and glorious so – a gut-busting release from the dread filmmaker Zach Cregger has conjured across the film’s multiple chapters.
As Gladys herself, Amy Madigan, tells Empire in our Review Of The Year 2025, it was just as fun to film as it was to watch. “I did all that running, which was a blast,” she says of the finale. “We had a stunt person, and the powers that be were a tad nervous about me doing all these things — let’s say I slipped and smashed my face into the door or something? I said, ‘No, I can do it.’” Who wouldn’t accept the chance to channel their inner Tom Cruise?
Of course, safety was a key priority too. “When I get tackled at the end and smooshed to the ground, no, I did not do that,” Madigan clarifies. Thankfully, the only gore came courtesy of special effects makeup, as Gladys is shredded by her tiny attackers. “They were totally into it! We shot that from a million different angles, and they just kept bouncing on me and ripping me,” she says of the young cast members. “I think they had fun.” Didn’t we all?
Read Empire’s full Amy Madigan interview on Weapons in our Review Of The Year – inside the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man issue, on sale Thursday December 18. Order a copy online here. Weapons is out now on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD and digital.
