Zach Cregger Archives - Silver Screen Riot

Prepare the crown, there’s a new king to be anointed. Zach Cregger, formerly of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U Know, burst onto the horror scene in 2022 with Barbarian. That film was a masterful, devilishly fun “something’s in the basement” thriller that tapped into audiences’ fear of negative space and relationship dynamics, all while embracing the over-the-top camp that made ’80s and ’90s horror so unserious and so much fun. Barbarian was a killer debut, promising a new horror voice less concerned with using the genre as a Trojan horse for social issues (Peele), plumbing mythic universalisms and medieval tonalities (Eggers), or turning grief into bone-chilling metaphor (Aster, and his knockoff army), and more into being a little scary, a little funny, and a whole lot of fun. His follow-up, Weapons, which WB declined to screen for most critics for some inconceivable reason, is both a worthy continuation of Cregger’s voice and a clear step up in craft. This guy may just be the horror prince the 2020s were promised. Read More

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Between 2016’s Don’t Breathe and Barbarian, there’s an emergent sub-genre of horror: Detroit Dystopia. Both films put the urban wreckage of the city’s broken ecosystem under the spotlight to set the scene for unspeakable horrors. Barbarian, if not directly inspired by Fede Alvarez’s 2016 horror hit, shares a lot of the same DNA and influences. Both take place in Detroit’s most rundown neighborhoods – an almost post-civilization shadowland marked by abandoned, graffiti-stained houses, a lack of discernible social services, and the roving few who’ve never left. In the ruin of a once flourishing industrial neighborhood lurks a gaping hole. And in that absence sadism festers. Their tunnels run deep. Read More