The two “iconic” movies that inspired Amy Madigan’s performance in ‘Weapons’
There are only a few film characters in the 21st century who have announced themselves as being all-time great villains, some of which include Heath Ledger’s the Joker in The Dark Knight, Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, and Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.
Making an antagonist that audiences love to hate is not an easy task, but director Zach Creggar managed to pull it off when he cast Amy Madigan as the sinister Aunt Gladys in his brilliant horror film Weapons.
Weapons was shrouded in secrecy from the moment that its marketing campaign began, leading to many theories of what the film might actually be about. Although many horror fans scoured the trailers to search for clues, Madigan’s appearance in the film wasn’t revealed in any of the commercials, making it all the more surprising when she turned up halfway through the story.
While it didn’t initially seem like a film that would provide a straightforward answer regarding the disappearance of a class of children, which causes a small town to turn on itself in chaos, Madigan justified the supernatural twist with a delightfully wicked performance. Sure, Gladys is eccentric and, at times, comically creepy, but it’s no laughing matter when she uses her ruthless techniques to weaponise people into attacking one another.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor revealed that much of the film’s emotional core was inspired by Creggar’s personal history, as he had dealt with alcoholism issues within his family, and that her performance was inspired by both Bette Davis’ haunting role in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? and Max Schreck as the titular vampire in the original 1922 Nosferatu.
“How you make somebody just drained of everything,” Madigan said, “Those kind of iconic things really stuck in my mind”.
Madigan’s willingness to cite older horror films as a source of inspiration is one of the primary reasons why Weapons felt like such a breath of fresh air within the current marketplace. Too many modern horror films are so focused on saying something in the most obvious way that they lose sight of the grip that they have on the audience, and although there is a lot of subtext to be read into what Weapons has to say about the divisions in America’s communities and the stages of grief, Madigan’s performance is effective because it is just downright scary.
The two examples she cited may seem like polar opposites, but they reflect the multifaceted nature of her performance. Davis’ turn in What Happened To Baby Jane? was an interesting flashpoint in Hollywood history in which a beloved star was stepping outside her comfort zone to make a spookier film, and it ended up being one of her most memorable roles, something Madigan, who had been a respected star with many classics on her resume, earned similarly with Weapons.
While the new version of Nosferatu starring Bill Skarsgård has already cemented itself as a new horror favourite, it makes sense that Madigan cites the original classic, which could only rely on its striking imagery. Even before Gladys begins talking in Weapons, the brief shots of her face are terrifying because of just how grotesque and disturbing the makeup is.
