Young horror prodigy doppelgangers?

While prepping the artwork for my review of Weapons, which you can find here, I came across this picture of someone directing Julia Garner on the set of the movie, and I thought, "Why do they have a picture of Oz Perkins explaining the scene to Garner, when the movie was directed by Zach Cregger?"

Oh but that is Cregger. They just look a lot alike.

Like, a lot.

How alike?

I'll let you be the judge.

Here's Cregger:

And here's Perkins:

The comparison might be even more striking when they're wearing glasses.

Cregger with glasses:

Perkins with glasses:

Having approximately the same amount of facial hair in these photos helps.

Okay so there isn't really anything profound to say about people just because they look like each other. 

So instead I'll ask: Who's the better director?

It's a good question.

My conclusion is that Perkins has higher highs and lower lows, and Cregger is more consistent, though that consistency finds me a bit more dispassionate on both of Cregger's projects than the average cinephile might be.

While I liked both Barbarian and Weapons, they both have things about them that give me pause, leading me to give them "only" 3.5 stars on Letterboxd. You can read that above linked review -- come on, you know you wanna -- if you want to get a better sense of my Weapons reservations, though also without spoilers.

By comparison, Perkins is a study in extremes.

I've seen five Perkins movies now to only the two for Cregger, so there's more data. But I can tell you that prior to this year, I had seen one five-star movie directed by Perkins (The Blackcoat's Daughter), one half-star movie directed by Perkins (Longlegs), and then two milquetoast three-star movies directed by Perkins (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and Gretel & Hansel). I'm no math major but that should average out perfectly to three stars.

Which puts him below Cregger, who is firmly entrenched at 3.5 stars.

But that was prior to this year, and this year I saw my fifth Perkins movie, The Monkey, which was a four-star Letterboxd rating for me. So that puts them basically on equal footing. 

But I love things that I love more than I hate things that I hate, and Perkins will always have a bit of a special rosy glow for me because of The Blackcoat's Daughter. Cregger has yet to achieve that rosy glow for me in either of his projects, but I feel like he has the potential to do so -- and less potential to really fuck something up as Perkins did with Longlegs.

Since each of their most recent movies was at least 3.5 stars, I'm definitely looking forward to what each does next, I can tell you that. 

For the record, there's a bit of a flaw in the premise of this post as stated in its title.

Neither Cregger nor Perkins is actually "young" in most true senses of the word. Cregger was a sitcom actor and comedic troupe founder before he started directing, and he's now the ripe old age of 44. And Perkins? He's barely younger than I am, having turned 51 in February to my October.

But they're young in the sense that they have only come on the scene in the past five to ten years and are injecting fresh ideas into horror. And may they remain forever so.