When it comes to movies about kids disappearing in the suburbs, Weapons and Prisoners are two of the best, so I am sure it’s not surprising to learn that when director Zach Cregger was making his latest horror flick starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, he had everyone check out Prisoners as a reference.
Let’s dive into this topic a little deeper.
In an interview with The Playlist, Cregger said, “Prisoners is all over this movie.”
And when you watch it, you can tell. The sullen parents who take matters into their own hands to find their kids. The rainy and bleak town that always seems to have wet streets. The epic mystery that unfolds as we see how these psycho biddies prey on the power of the youth. Both movies have all that stuff.
Those ideas were further expanded on when he spoke to Letterboxd, saying, “First of all, the cinematography of Prisoners is so gorgeous. Roger Deakins! It’s this washed-out, somber, cloudy, rainy movie. I really wanted to evoke everything visually that that movie evoked, so my cinematographer and I watched Prisoners and talked about it a lot when we were scouting. It’s very lived-in, too—that movie feels very authentic. You know, the mess in the people’s homes and all that stuff is great.”
The harrowing themes of both movies show that no one is really safe in the suburbs, which are communities that provide an illusion of safety that lulls people into making poor decisions or trusting the wrong people.
It’s clear, too, that Cregger and his cinematographer, Larkin Seiple, sought to replicate the somber, washed-out aesthetic crafted by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins.
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Two Movies With Their Own Voices
What I really like about all these quotes is that Cregger used a movie as a visual and maybe tonal reference, but he still managed to make his own version of it that was distinctly his point of view.
It shows the homage or pastiche works only if you have something new to say yourself and a new story to tell. Even though there are overlapping themes, Weapons and Prisoners are very different movies as well.
Part of me hopes they’ll both open up the ability to make more film and TV about the suburbs, because I think they’ve been neglected a lot in today’s storytelling.
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Summing It Up
Both Weapons and Prisoners are great crime epics, one that steers into horror and one that is a grounded thriller. Each of them was able to use a lot of the same ideas, but with completely different goals. I love seeing directors find their auteur vision, as well as hearing about references to other movies that helped them find their footing.
Together, these movies would make a strong double feature.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
