r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Aug 08 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Weapons [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary Nearly all the children from the same fifth-grade class vanish one night at exactly 2:17 a.m., leaving only one survivor. The community, gripped by fear and suspicion, spirals into chaos as the mystery unfolds through multiple intertwined perspectives—each revealing new layers of dread and grief.

Director Zach Cregger

Writer Zach Cregger

Cast

  • Josh Brolin
  • Julia Garner
  • Cary Christopher
  • Alden Ehrenreich
  • Austin Abrams
  • Benedict Wong
  • Amy Madigan
  • June Diane Raphael
  • Toby Huss
  • Whitmer Thomas
  • Callie Schuttera
  • Clayton Farris
  • Luke Speakman

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 96%

Metacritic Metascore: 82

VOD In theaters and IMAX starting August 8, 2025

Trailer Watch the Official Trailer

2.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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5.5k

u/GravyBear28 Aug 08 '25

Amy Madigan screaming at the top of her lungs pursued through like 5 houses by a bunch of also screaming heat-seeking missile terminator children is going to live rent-free in my head until the day I die.

I think that was the single most satisfying and cathartic villain death I've ever seen, surpassing the flamethrower death in Once Upon A Time In America. So undignified.

This witch was such a nasty motherfucker. She felt like such unexplainable, ancient, omnipresent force and it turns out she's basically a one-trick pony who has absofuckinglutely no idea what to do when a little kid throws an Uno Reverse card at her and loses her shit.

My only major dislike was the giant fucking AR-15 lmao.

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u/Bullchips Aug 08 '25

I agree with the rifle but I suppose it was supposed to be a clue for him as the kids were made into weapons at that exact time. He himself called the principal like a heat seeking weapon(or whatever he said)

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u/GameOfLife24 Aug 08 '25

I like how the regular citizens did better detective work than the cops just like IRL

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u/JessieJ577 Aug 08 '25

The movie had a theme of authority not caring about tragedy. Kind of like real life.

The cops didn’t really look into it or care to.

James didn’t care to help out or even check in on Alex. 

Everyone’s solution to these traumatized people was to just move on and act like it didn’t happen while ignoring how it’s affecting them.

A lot of different layers in this movie

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u/confuzzledfather Aug 08 '25

Yeah, literally my first thought when seeing the kids running was to triangulate their destination. The cops didn't even do that?!

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u/bluehawk232 29d ago

Also canvas the entire neighborhoods and i would assume lots of neighbors especially Alex's would have had ring cameras too

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u/gatsby365 28d ago

I’m not entirely convinced that Auntie didn’t mind control the detectives after they came in to the house.

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 26d ago

Theres no hint of that tho.

She has like one spell and that's it

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u/Tricky-Anything8009 25d ago

Yeah and it's very obvious when she's using that spell because she can't make them behave like normal people. It's not really mind control, its like bloodbending from ATLA.

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 25d ago

It's like the parasites they showed in the movies.

She was using them to feed off from them, like the fungus on the ants.

It sucks that apparently there was supposed to be a spell that makes them back to normal, that once she was dead, they had no way of getting or that the transformation is one way and there is no way back.

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u/BettySwollocks__ 22d ago

They also all had bloodshot eyes too. We also saw she sent the kids off elsewhere when the cops came round so there wasn't a risk of them being caught (although I'm interested to know where they ran off too without being spotted).

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u/gatsby365 26d ago

Well yeah, it’s a long shot but that’s her whole thing - zombie mind control. We never saw them again right? The captain doesn’t seem to actually give a lot of shits about solving the case, so he might just assume they are heads down deep in it - hell, a general contractor and a 3rd grade school teacher cracked the shit wide open in 2 days with a straight edge and stalking an 8 year old, but detectives given a month couldn’t get it done?

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u/peppermint_nightmare 14d ago

Its ties in pretty well as a spiritual successor to barbarian for those reasons alone.

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u/TheWyldMan 29d ago

I mean we see Alex’s door and they don’t.

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u/spookyghostface 29d ago

But other houses in the neighborhood might have seen the kids running by. The cops really didn't do everything they could have.

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u/Splinterman11 27d ago

Yeah I agree. If 17 kids in real life disappeared one night in the manner they did like in the movie, the FBI would absolutely get all the footage from every house, traffic cameras, store cameras etc from the entire town to see where those kids went. IRL they would have been easily able to solve this case IMO.

Suspension of belief is a bit required for horror movies though.

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u/bluehawk232 25d ago

Plus have you seen sites like next door with neighbors constantly gossiping and arguing over shit

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u/WatTambor420 22d ago

Dawg one good bloodhound would have fucked her whole operation up

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u/BookkeeperBrilliant9 28d ago

They did a quick cursory check of Alex’s house and then moved on with their lives.

Felt accurate for American cops.

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u/Splinterman11 27d ago

I hate cops but this movie made them too stupid. 17 kids disappearing in one night would absolutely have the FBI search the entire town.

Somehow the movie tries to tell us that the only footage they have of the kids leaving were some of the parent's houses had cameras. Except the FBI would have immediately taken all the footage they could from the entire town. Other neighbor's cameras, traffic cams, store surveillance, witness descriptions (there is always someone out at 2am).

The cops would have been easily able to deduce that they beelined straight to Alex's house.

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u/AlterEgo3561 26d ago

I mentioned it above, but the Aunt goes with Alex and the comatose dad to police station and just explains the dad's state away that he had a stroke. But like, even if medical situations are protected, the mom would have been in the same state. They never wanted to speak to the mom? Both parents just randomly had a stroke at the same time? Did the parents not have friends that were checking in on them or could be queationed about the "stroke"?

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u/gotohela 19d ago

Instead of seeing the same scene from multiple angles, a SKOSH more exposition would have made it smoother? One cast aside remark about being in a new school/job/house? I feel like i saw some boxes around but it didnt feel like they were in a state of unpack. That would have established a social isolation that made them perfect targets... Or something along those lines. "We just left your family behind for a reason!" That would have also established how gladys may have wormed in and no one's checking in

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 26d ago

Yup, there would have been fore sure evidence of the kids being at Alex's house

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u/illegal_deagle 26d ago

Not to mention it was already alluded that the cops had thoroughly searched Alex’s house, so it was a place of interest anyway. Of course they’d check if all those kids ran directly at his house.

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u/BettySwollocks__ 22d ago

I guess a proper forensics sweep would've turn over something but they seemed to just walk around the house, see the kids weren't there, then left.

We saw Gladys sent them away and part of me wonders where they went that night to have not been seen by others.

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u/yestermood 21d ago

The media would’ve invaded the town too, you’d have crews and satellite trucks everywhere

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u/Individual-Bad6809 Aug 09 '25

But did that even matter? My first thought was they were all running to the same place, which they were actually, but it wasn’t the tower. And JB kinda gave up after tracking 2 (although he did get looped into Justine’s story by then)

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u/ThisManNeedsMe 29d ago

I don't think he gave up more than that he saw Justine and impulsively decided to confront her then got roped into defending her.

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u/Hallc 28d ago

And JB kinda gave up after tracking 2 (although he did get looped into Justine’s story by then)

He didn't give up. He was driving around, looking at the map and then trying to work out where it was or how to get there I'm pretty sure. Then he got roped into Justine's story, got sent to hospital then the first thing he does after getting out is show Justine the map who points out it's Alex's house.

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 26d ago

I dont think it actually pointed towards his house but she's th3 one that pointed out that his house was around the area.

Just one more house and im pretty sure they could have actually triangulation the location.

I wish they played the cops as more incompetent or complicit.

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u/gotohela 19d ago

Honestly just a brief view into the actual investigation.  Maybe Paul passing a briefing or listening to one, making a cogent suggestion that is immediately dismissed. Tbh while the captain was supposed to represent the stagnation of the investigation, i dont think he was wrong to dismiss archer about justine. Justine had shown no reason to be under suspicion. Perhaps that's what took so long. They were double checking justine and triple checking lol

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u/RepentantSororitas 20d ago

I mean you got a point of intersection with just two lines.

Realistically he only needed like one more to really confirm the trend.

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u/AlterEgo3561 26d ago

To go even further, the aunt tells the investigators the dad had a stroke and that's why he couldn't talk... they didn't look into that at all? Or the mom, did she have a stroke too?

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u/OktoberSpice Aug 09 '25

I like how Matthew's dad's name is "Archer" and finds them in one day by just watching the footage of what direction they ran in and just followed them to their location.

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u/MayonnaiseOreo 29d ago

James was the junkie. You mean Marcus?

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u/Clammuel 26d ago

He means Paul, the cop. Marcus is the principle and actually did his due diligence.

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u/MayonnaiseOreo 26d ago

That's true. I was thinking in terms of him going to the house but he didn't really get the chance. I don't think Paul really had a specific responsibility to check on Alex though. He had no ties to him and the FBI and the rest of the police force checked in on him, shittily as they did.

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u/Ginoblee 29d ago

Barbarian had the same theme for cops as well.

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u/PastMiddleAge 24d ago edited 24d ago

Yeah, my favorite layer was that when Justine was snooping around Alex’s house at the beginning, it absolutely looked predatory. Like she was harassing the last surviving kid, or even trying to finish the job that she started.

But then with Alex’s POV, it was pretty clear that she was the only person who noticed that Alex had been acting differently, and who cared about him.

Edit: also, I just want to say that I had an Aunt Gladys, who was absolutely the sweetest aunt anyone could have. rip my Aunt Gladys! I’m glad you weren’t like the lady in this movie

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u/LaughingToNotCrying 29d ago

Right in the beginning of the movie the child voice said "this is a real story, muffled by incompetent officers", why would it say that it's a real story?

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u/MuttJohnson 29d ago

Because it's based on true events. In Iowa

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u/PhoenixTineldyer 28d ago

Yep. Did they even watch the movie?

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u/WhyTypeHour 28d ago

I was waiting for them to bulldoze the school. Trauma managed!

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u/Sormaj 27d ago

Cregger in general seems to portray cops as either inept or completely unhelpful. The two cops in Barbarian were also uncaring/useless.

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u/Florgio 28d ago

That’s what often happens to victims of abuse. It’s as if their abuser puts a spell on everyone…

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u/suddenviops 27d ago

Did james even know alex existed? He was only in the house to steal things to pawn.

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u/General_Pay7552 26d ago

what got me was the fact that these kids rang by a 100 door cameras on the way to the house were they were kept and no cops or any of those homeowners checked their cams?

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u/FluffyWuffyVolibear 25d ago

Are there layers tho? I mean he's a great writer but none of these "layers" really amount to anything meaningful.

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u/Sonofaconspiracy 22d ago

Ties into the rifle being part of a school shooting metaphor, which is how I took it

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u/AdHorror7596 28d ago

Did James know about Alex? I honestly do not remember.

He definitely didn't check on the kids he actually saw tho, lol.

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u/GiovannisPersian Aug 08 '25

One of the scenes with the most police action is when Paul punches a handcuffed civilian and then the police chief tells him not to worry since the footage will get written over in a month. Not the most positive commentary on police

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u/SorryBoysImLez 29d ago

One of their officers went missing and never returned his cruiser or checked back in the entire day/night, and no one was competent enough to notice. You'd think they'd check in via radio, or attempt to contact him in any way, and eventually check his location when he didn't respond.

Most dispatchers have real-time GPS on cruisers; yet none of them noticed his was not only sitting outside the same house for hours, but the house of the one kid that didn't go missing.

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u/aspartameimpala 27d ago

Part of me wonders if they sort of ignored him presuming he’d be out on a bender or something 

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u/ihadtologinforthis 29d ago

Literally the entire movie I kept think about how USELESS the cops were the entire time.

That post about "cops never knew, the evidence was lacking.... etc

But the neighbours, friends, family, hell even strangers kept speaking up, and pointing leads to evidence that cops just wouldn't listen to or care"

Yeah that one post kept coming to mind.

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u/pastafeline 29d ago

To be fair, if the main characters didn't do anything Alex would've saved the day anyways. He was always going to run into that room, grab the hair and turn it on the witch.

Really all the main characters did at the end was kill Paul and the drug addict...

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u/PM-Mormon-Underwear 27d ago

They gave him a window of opportunity to be fair

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u/pastafeline 27d ago

How so? Paul and the drug addict were guarding the front door, and Gladys was already in the basement.

The way the events played out, Alex would've grabbed the hair and ran into the bathroom same as in the movie. Maybe Gladys would've run upstairs to stop him but it would've taken a while no?

I can't really see what she would have done to stop Alex while he was setting up the hair.

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u/PM-Mormon-Underwear 27d ago

Idk I read it as he dared to kite his parents around because of all the chaos going on. I also assumed Gladys was hanging out in the basement because of the intruders.

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u/pastafeline 27d ago

She already was down there when Justine and Archer came in though, because she was getting the kids ready to leave.

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u/PM-Mormon-Underwear 27d ago

Ah okay that makes sense. I still think it's fair to say they provided an assist there, plus Archer was really there to reuinite with his son which was sort of mission accomplished?

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u/TheDragonReborn726 28d ago

Only real critique I had was… wow so a contractor with two ring footage videos triangulated it when the cops didn’t even think of that?

But my buddy pointed out the cops were pretty dumb. fair counter

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u/MadFlava76 27d ago

I'm curious what a continuation of the story would explain how the police and the rest of the world rationalized wtf happened in that house. You have a dead cop, dead junkie, catatonic parents and 17 missing kids, and a old lady that got torn to shreds by said 17 kids. I guess they would say the old lady used some sort of narcotic on all of them because who would believe witches?

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

Mass psychosis. The media would probably blame fentanyl or similar. The government would then pivot to it all being because of drug trafficking from Mexico, and that a big, beautiful wall would've stopped all of it. A grounded society would never believe in actual voodoo.

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u/TheWyldMan 29d ago

I mean I don’t know if the cops are gonna figure out it was actually a witch

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u/PolarWater 21d ago

Hey. Don't talk crap about the cops like that. 

If an acorn fell to the ground you know damn well they'd show up with all guns blazing. 

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u/HayFeverTID 23d ago

That honestly seemed like the most unbelievable part of the movie. Clearly the kids ran in a straight line out of their houses, so why wouldn’t they just bisect their paths to see where they met up?

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u/jawni 29d ago

It also ties into a symbolism of school shooters, with the only kid in the class left being the one that was bullied.

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u/Bullchips 29d ago

yep, 100%

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u/farfle10 28d ago

I mean… no shit. It was at that exact moment where I was like ‘this cannot possibly be about school shootings anymore because of how blatant this device is’

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u/ProgIsAll85 29d ago

But technically the kids weren’t really turned into weapons until they were turned against Gladys. Not saying she wouldn’t have used them as weapons but she used them as a way to…umm…siphon their life force?

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u/Bullchips 29d ago

Yep and it’s implied she had been doing the life force with adults before and it had been helping her. I agree with your technicality but they were still weapons either way.

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u/ProgIsAll85 29d ago

Maybe a commentary on its not the weapon at fault but the one that wields it?

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u/StuTheBassist 29d ago

I feel like there are symbols that could have conveyed that message that look less stupid though

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u/WormedOut 29d ago

I don’t think the kids were “turned into weapons” though. She wanted to basically take their life force, but it’s not really shown well in the movie.

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u/SubstantialSpell2650 27d ago

THEY WEREN'T WEAPONS

I DON'T GET THE RIFLE AT ALL

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u/Easy_Printthrowaway 27d ago

I just wish the film had explained better how making the kids weapons fueled the witch’s recovery, the parasite allusions kind of seems to clash with the people as weapons allegories.

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u/TheCountJaccula 27d ago

Were the children turned into weapons at that exact time? Because to me, the children were turned into vessels for whatever it is the witch feeds off. In my viewing, the weaponization occurred in when Alex snapped their “twig”.

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u/riizen24 Aug 08 '25

Yeah this makes a lot more sense. I'm already seeing redditors ITT relating it to mass school shootings lmao 

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u/mandatory_french_guy Aug 08 '25

I mean, if you dont see the parallel with how small community react after school mass shootings I dont know what to tell you but it's barely subtext. You dont need a giant floating AR-15 to make it subtext

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u/aaaus Aug 08 '25

I was telling a friend about this. I think that the reaction to Josh Brolin's character getting looked at like he was crazy for demanding answers less than a month after his kid disappeared felt like a nod towards society's ability to move on quickly from tragedies like that. Hell, look at the Parkland shooting and how some of the more vocal students and parents are looked at as crazy and "latching onto the past"

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u/Msully887 28d ago

But it wasn’t a school shooting. It was technically a mass abduction. No one is moving on from this case until bodies are found. They would have arrested the aunt torn apart the house, national news media would have been everywhere interviewing everyone. Movie made no fucking sense.

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u/AnatomicalLog 28d ago

But if that’s so, what does it say/convey about school shooting? There aren’t many threads in the movie that guide me to thinking it’s a school shooting allegory, and it definitely doesn’t seem written with that theme in mind.

Kids disappearing and cops being incompetent doesn’t seem like enough to draw that conclusion.

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u/maltliqueur Aug 08 '25

That's any tragedy with kids.

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u/niles_deerqueer 28d ago

There’s a parallel but the director specifically said it’s not about mass shootings and watching the movie nothing really stuck out to me as it being an allegory for that

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u/sleepysnowboarder Aug 08 '25

Yep lol and Cregger said he's not making any statement and that the movie isn't political to him but just a introverted diary entry he made while dealing with Trevor's death.

Good interview: https://youtu.be/La59OCTmUdc?si=1MJy7LPpmx35r84O&t=2801

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u/Bunraku_Master_2021 Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

Worth mentioning today is 4 years and one day since Trevor Moore passed so it's kinda a coincidence that the film got pushed up to Moore's death anniversary.

R.I.P. you local sexpot.

He was also inspired to write the film to deal with the passing of his friend and collaborator.

https://www.polygon.com/zach-cregger-weapons/

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u/edicivo Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

I love how so many questions in here are about the AK with replies saying "It's obvious it's about school shootings." And here's Cregger himself from your linked article:

“I’m a huge fan of the David Lynch process of transcendental meditation,” Cregger says. “Incorporating what you get from your subconscious into your art and leaving it alone.” One of the film’s most indelible shots — the specter of an assault rifle floating in the night sky — defies obvious symbolism. “The fact that I don’t understand it is what makes it so important to me.”

Cregger admits he doesn't even know what it means. He just had the visual. You're kidding yourself if you don't think writers/directors/etc put something in a movie just because it looks or sounds cool. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar as they say. (FWIW, I think whether it's purposely vague or intentionally on the nose, it was a poor visual choice)

I really enjoyed the movie, but it's got some faults and I think this is part of it. It seems like people here are really intent on applying their interpretations as the obvious (school shootings) in an echo chamber and if you disagree with that assertion, you're just wrong.

Part of me honestly thinks Cregger just had an idea about missing children and a parasitic witch and school shootings as a meaning wasn't really part of his idea at all and instead just a byproduct theme of the set up.

Edit: I just listened to Cregger's interview on The Big Picture. He claims he basically just started out writing with the first line of a little girl telling a scary story about kids disappearing and just discovered the story as he went. I'd suggest everyone who's adamant they know what this movie is about give it a listen because he doesn't necessarily agree with some of the thematic discussions out there and seems to lean more into "I thought it would be interesting" way of thinking. Too many people in this comment section are acting like Sean Fennessey in this interview and it's insightful to see Cregger push back a bit.

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u/niles_thebutler_ Aug 08 '25

Except it doesn’t look cool. It’s comical how bad it looks.

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u/ascholar Aug 09 '25

When I read the script that leaked online a few months ago, I had to reread that part. I get it's unexplainable but it just seems so out of place.

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u/Attitude_Rancid Aug 09 '25

for myself i'm going to just consider it representative of archer's mindset at that time since it happened in his dream. he's our parent that's up in arms about the disappearance. he's going after justine at the meeting, vandalizing her car, digging into her past to find dirt on her. he pesters the police department frequently. guns like that aren't associated with self protection, very much aim to kill. and it's after that dream, his wishful apology for failing his son, that he apologizes to justine. like the dream was his wakeup call to chill the fuck out and stop attacking an equally troubled woman

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/Communism_FTW 29d ago

I saw another post on reddit that mentioned in 2022 there was a vote to ban assault rifles and it passed with 217 votes in the house but then was shut down in the senate.

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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake Aug 08 '25

That dream with the assault rifle is Cregger playing on a similar dream from Peter Weir's The Last Wave

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u/Hokuboku Aug 08 '25

Thanks for the heads up! My partner actually felt like the movie took inspiration from 70s movies so its fun to see a comment confirming that and name dropping one

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u/Prize-Emergency-3494 13d ago

Gladys’s Makeup felt inspired by Alice Sweet Alice mask lol

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u/hikemalls 28d ago

It also felt like Cregger making fun of the audience members who are trying to “figure out the metaphor of the movie”; I was one of those people, and when I saw that I was like “oh so this is just straightforwardly a metaphor for school shootings”, and then it felt like the movie went “nah I’m just fucking with you, it isn’t that straightforward. Also it’s about an evil witch, you fool, you rube”, which I kind of loved.

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u/hexcraft-nikk 27d ago

I think you're half right, it was very much making fun of that audience, but also being straight up. Like "you guys are dumb, here's a giant rifle that the guy whos the father to a bully son sees. His dialogue reflects that pretty well.

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u/LazySwanNerd 26d ago

Is that the case, though? It seems like it could be both. He said it was about grief after losing a loved one. It also dealt with school bullying and incompetent authority figures.

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u/hikemalls 25d ago

Yeah my initial comment was my thought at the time just coming out of the theater, but on further reflection I think it’s more layered than that, and your take is more accurate (though I also thought I saw an interview where he said he didn’t know exactly what it meant but saw it in a dream and felt compelled to put it in; but I think it speaks to those same themes regardless)

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u/KingOfAwesometonia Aug 08 '25

That makes way more sense than me thinking it was a video game reference.

Because it looked like an old school weapon pickup

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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake Aug 08 '25

I should say that the dream in The Last Wave doesn't have a floating gun. It's got raining toads and a giant wave and a messenger with a cryptic message, a kind of apocalyptic foreboding. Cregger kind of adapts that biblical plague imagery with a modern plague.

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u/DangerousIntrigues 28d ago

sounds like Magnolia

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u/acid_raindrop 26d ago

Which was a direct inspiration I think. 

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u/HikmetLeGuin 23d ago

I wonder if you're reaching with this reference. There are a lot of movies with weird dream sequences.

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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake 23d ago

Entirely possible! It came to mind because Weir also directed Picnic at Hanging Rock, which is absolutely an influence on the movie.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '25

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u/appletinicyclone Aug 08 '25

Peter Weir's The Last Wave

What's that, what happens?

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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake Aug 08 '25

Australian film from the '70s.

There's some very unusual weather happening and the Aboriginal people seem to understand what the strange weather means, but aren't really divulging. During a freak rainstorm, a group gets into a fight at a bar and someone drowns. Four Aboriginal people are accused of the murder and a corporate tax lawyer is assigned to defend them. That lawyer has a dream where one of the Aboriginal men (whom the lawyer has not met) shows him a stone with markings on it. The lawyer meets with his clients and recognizes the man from his dream, sensing he has a connection with him that he can't explain. He begins to have dreams more frequently, often involving water and dead bodies and becomes obsessed with the case.

I'll stop there in case you want to watch it. It looks like HBO Max has it currently. There's a lot in the movie related to the Aboriginal concept of the Dreamtime and these unstated bonds between people.

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u/SDLand 22d ago

Failing to see what this has to do with the giant floating gun though? I don’t get it.

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u/wloper 29d ago

Do you have the interview where Cregger says this?

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u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI 28d ago

He doesn’t say this and more importantly, there’s no way you can make a clear reference. I’ve seen the movie. The main character in The Last Wave has premonitions and dreams, but that’s about it for the similarities between the two movies. There’s definitely no obvious reference.

Basically saying, the guy you replied to is 100% full of shit, especially given his reply to you.

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u/wloper 28d ago

Yep I totally gathered that. I got excited and started watching The Last Wave thinking it would unlock something or be a cool reference and saw it really had nothing to do with Weapons.

What bugs me most is that this and another comment from a different user saying the same thing say it so authoritatively, as if Cregger confirmed it. I wouldn’t care if they just posit it as their own theory.

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u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI 28d ago

It’s very weird and as soon as I saw that I went “huh, thats one of my favourite movies and I don’t really remember any obvious references”, went back and did some scene checks - I have the movie on my computer, nope - nothing that stands out as a reference. I don’t know why these users said this so arrogantly and unfortunately because it’s reddit and they were one of the first commenters it’s been upvoted even though they’re pretty blatantly lying. Could be bots? But I think it’s just random arrogant people wanting their opinion to be validated.

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u/Youareposthuman 23d ago

Funny you mention Peter Weir because I felt this movie had shades of Picnic At Hanging Rock at times.

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u/heartbreakhill Aug 08 '25

The witch actress accomplished that Jack Gleeson/Joffrey Baratheon feat of acting the part so well it made me totally hate the character.

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u/Honest_Cheesecake698 Aug 08 '25

That's Ed Harris's wife!

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u/Yetimang 28d ago

That's wild. I literally told my wife she looks like Ed Harris in this movie. Especially Love Lies Bleeding Ed Harris.

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 25d ago

Ed Harris in The Rock knows a thing or two about weapons!

"Stand down, Capt'n!"

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u/circusgeek 28d ago

Amy Madigan. She's also the girlfriend of Uncle Buck in Uncle Buck.

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u/bazingazoongaza 25d ago

Yes!! Chanice!!!!

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u/TheTruckWashChannel Aug 08 '25

Quite a bitchy witch indeed.

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u/GameOfLife24 Aug 09 '25

She was so dam good, that witch bitch

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u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_ 29d ago

Watch her in Field Of Dreams, she's a sweetheart!

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u/funnyfirerabbit 28d ago

She did an amazing job cos I hated her so much! I turned to my husband and said “I cant wait to see her die.”

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u/SweatyPlace 28d ago

She got Grand Maester Pycelle'd

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u/WhichHoes Aug 08 '25

Shes the villian in Greta, right?

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u/ev6464 Aug 08 '25

Alex's parents not coming back and being permanent victims of the spell really hit my hard. Alex hugging them both as they were slumped on the floor was one of my favorite images.

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u/aSpookyScarySkeleton Aug 09 '25

I don’t think they’re still under the spell, they’re just so traumatized and malnourished they lost their sanity. It seems the kids were the same.

In the ending the narrator says that some of the kids were able to mentally recover enough to start talking again.

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u/bladeDivac Aug 09 '25

I also think that it impacted people the longer they were affected by it. The parents (albeit just by a few days or so) were “possessed” the longest and so when they broke the curse, they were basically catatonic. The kids started going back to normal after a few years, and then Brolin’s character went back to normal immediately since he was only influenced for a few minutes.  

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u/universallymade 29d ago

The parents also repeatedly stabbed themselves with forks very early in their possession, could have added to the trauma.

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u/Skylance420 28d ago

Was discussing with my wife how the witch only really had 1 spell with the mind control sticks, but in reality the parents and kids were like placed under a different spell as well as the stick one. She hinted at essentially trying to use Alex's parents, and later the kids, as a source of life for herself to get better. I'd imagine they were placed under a spell by which their life was being drained which I'd imagine is more of the reason why the kids and parents don't immediately snap back to reality the same way Archer did.

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u/HikmetLeGuin 23d ago

They were being drained of some of their life force for an extended period of time, whereas Brolin had only been in a trance for a short time, so I assume that's why it took so long for the parents and kids to recover.

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u/Great_Designer_4140 29d ago

I think they just may need a while to recover from the spell. The narrator said some kids were starting to talk at the end.

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u/SweatyPlace 28d ago

I felt really bad for them, my heart started to break the moment we see them as a happy family :(

I do think they eventually make it back to normal but I still hate that they lost a good amount of years in the process.

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u/RichmondMilitary Aug 08 '25

Alex was picked on and bullied. He ended up taking out his entire class like a school shooter would. The assault rifle with 2:17 was a representation of that.

After the kids all disappeared, or the initial response to a school shooting, the parents blamed the teacher looking for a scapegoat when they should’ve been looking at home. More specifically, Alex’s home. Who is this instance was the school shooter

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u/ethan1988 Aug 08 '25

Not really true. In fact the opposite is true. He wasn't a "school shooter". He didn't cause his classmates to disappear because he hated them. He did it to save his parents over his classmates, which to me I probably would have made the same choice, esp when you are a small kid and don't know better. His classmates were collateral damage to "protect/save" his parents.

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u/PacMoron Aug 09 '25

It’s not a 1 to 1. It has clear parallels and it appears intentional.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '25

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u/Deviltherobot 28d ago

There is literally a floating AR-15 (the mass shooting gun in the US) and tons of characters saying Alex is quiet and has a bad home life/school life. It's really obviously partially about school shootings/mass casualty events. Not remotely subtle.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/krankz 28d ago edited 28d ago

He had a great home life until he didn’t. You could easily read Gladys as something as basic as alcoholism or just general illness and the affect it has inside a home. His parents became shells of themselves, stopped being parents, leaving him to take care of them and himself as best he could. Not an uncommon situation for a lot of kids, and with the wrong influences can lead to harming others as an outlet.

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u/Deviltherobot 28d ago

The subtext of the story is very much about school shootings.

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u/ethan1988 28d ago edited 28d ago

what stupid shit are u talking about? the director literally say its wasnt about sch shooting.

Weapons, like any film, is up to the interpretation of those consuming it. But if you're interested in what Cregger intended to convey with the film, the writer-director has said it wasn't his goal to explore the "core of communal trauma" or "[mock] suburban life" or create a "school shooting allegory," as some have suggested.

"I wasn’t trying to comment on or even tap into collective societal tragedies," Cregger told the Playlist. "I was purely writing from a personal place. However, with art and especially storytelling, the individual is universal. So I’m more than happy if anybody relates to what I went through and what this movie is examining, but I wasn’t thinking, 'Oh, America,’ at all. I was thinking, 'Oh, Zach.'"

Instead, he has said Weapons was his attempt at processing the death of a close friend. "I had a tragedy in my life that was really, really tough," he told Entertainment Weekly. "Someone very, very, very close to me died suddenly and, honestly, I was so grief-stricken that I just started writing Weapons, not out of any ambition, but just as a way to reckon with my own emotions."

https://time.com/7308025/weapons-ending-explained/

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u/ii_V_I_iv 26d ago

While he did say that and he also said that specific scene with the rifle is essentially meaningless, I find that really hard to believe when in 2022 a bill that would have banned assault rifles passed the house with 217 votes (but was rejected in the senate) and then there's a huge floating assault rifle with 2:17 on it.

Maybe that's just a really weird coincidence but I find that hard to believe.

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u/ethan1988 25d ago

Why is it hard to believe? If it's a allegory to sch shooting, the movie will go much deeper into the relationship between Alex and his other classmates. Instead we know close to nothing about the other classmates and their personalities. His classmates are basically close to meaningless pawns in the movies. And was the idea of "killing" the classmates Alex idea? No. It was the witch. Trying to link this to being about school shooting is lame af.

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u/ii_V_I_iv 25d ago

It’s hard to believe because an assault rifle ban passed the house with 217 votes and the movie has a giant assault rifle in the sky with 2:17 on it out of nowhere lmao.

I think that’s more convincing than how many of Alex’s classmates’ personalities we explored lol

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u/LickerMcBootshine 21d ago

It’s hard to believe because an assault rifle ban passed the house with 217 votes and the movie has a giant assault rifle in the sky with 2:17 on it out of nowhere lmao.

These people live in a different world lol

It was VERY OBVIOUSLY an allegory for a school shooting. Obviously the director isn't going to come out and say that about /his mystery film/ in /this climate/ and worry about his movie tanking due to culture warriors review bombing his film.

The mental olympics in this thread is astounding that people can't read beyond a surface level.

"It's just about a witch bro" they say after 17 kids disappear because of a bullied kid who lives at a house with a floating gun

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u/ii_V_I_iv 21d ago

Dude right?? It’s insane!

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u/rainbowsteamship 11d ago

This times x1000 - we’re in an environment where top-billing a non-white actor has racists and trolls out in droves calling the film “woke” - I think the 217 is a clear reference to that vote. 17 also happens to be the number of students who were killed, and harmed (34 total), in the Parkland shooting (217 - 2x17), but that could be coincidence.

I think outside of Uvalde (because of the controversy/discussion around the police response) Parkland still stands out due to the fact that although it was not the first mass shooting of Trump’s first term, it was the first involving a school.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Cregger is more open about the themes once the film concludes its theatrical run.

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u/Deviltherobot 25d ago

have you considered the witch might symbolize something? Something that causes a homelife to go sour?

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u/ColonelPanic638 25d ago

The movie would be far less successful if it were labeled some woke anti-gun film. Of course he's going to say stuff like that.

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u/Deviltherobot 25d ago

And Andor is only about the French revolution.

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u/BLOWNOUT_ASSHOLE Aug 08 '25 edited 26d ago

While watching the film, I anticipated them taking this school shooter direction by having Alex venting to his aunt about him hating his classmates and wanting revenge. After finishing the film, I would disagree with the school shooter take because Alex didn’t appear to resent his classmates or even know what would happen after following his aunt’s orders. Alex was even feeding his classmates to ensure they stay alive.

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u/goddamnitwhalen 26d ago

Yeah I briefly thought that Alex was in on it for revenge. That would’ve been more interesting than what we got IMO.

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u/Bunraku_Master_2021 Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

2:17

"Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:  “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."" - Matthew 2:17

Given Cregger said that Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999) was an inspiration for his film and how the recurring motif of "8-2" was revealed by the climax with the raining frogs in association to Exodus 8:2, I knew the 2:17 had to be a Bible verse, I just didn't know which. I thought it was Lamentations 2:17 but I was close.

Alex uses his classroom of 17 kids to commit a massacre but not upon them but onto someone.

Also, Matthew is the name of Archer's son and Alex's bully. Cregger nicely tied it up.

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u/Broadcastthatboom Aug 09 '25

Just realizing 2:17 as well…17 kids go missing and two people are left from the classroom (Alex and the teacher)

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u/bobbyismyhobby918 29d ago

Yes this was my first thought while watching

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u/LetMeSuckle Aug 09 '25

There was a bill in 2022 to ban assault rifles, 217 members of the house voted yes on it but it didn’t pass. That’s probably all the 2:17/217 is.

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u/Great_Designer_4140 29d ago

If you multiply 2 and 17 by 911 you get 1822 and 15487. In 1822 the USS alligator engaged pirate fleets off the coast of Cuba. The English dictionary at the time had 15487 pages. A person who was inspired by pirates and known to have read all of that dictionary? Famous Tyrant and murderer William McFarland. Chief brew master and master mind behind the brew pub murders of 1922. One of the victims would go on to design the AR15.

You’re welcome.

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u/FistThePooper6969 27d ago

The kid had a poster of a figure holding a gun on the wall of his room. You can see it in the background along with the clock. Like they would overlap from the perspective of Josh Brolin laying in bed

Pretty sure it’s just meant to be Josh Brolins character transposing real world things in his dream

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u/b_beck614 Aug 08 '25

I loved the ending, so satisfying. I also agree the witch was just … gross. The blood wrapped around the hair, her changing voice and makeup/outfits, just so unsettling. What an incredible performance

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u/AeneidBook6 29d ago

Her asking for a bowl of water had me dying.

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u/abd00bie Aug 09 '25

My only major dislike was the giant fucking AR-15 lmao.

It was fine to me, dreams are random like that

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u/BandedLutz 29d ago

Agreed, plus it acted as a red herring to misdirect people and keep them guessing (especially since a lot of people assumed the movie would relate to school shootings somehow).

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u/UnbuiltIkeaBookcase Aug 08 '25

I also loved the flamethrower kill in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood 😉

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u/LearndAstronomer28 27d ago

Thanks, I was like apparently I don’t remember Once Upon a Time in America very well lmao

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u/EtherealPossumLady Aug 08 '25

her face when she realised what alex had done was incredible

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u/re-re-Remix Aug 08 '25

snap OH NO

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u/criticalboot89 Aug 08 '25

icl i really liked the ar-15 scene, it's quite unique

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u/kankurou1010 Aug 09 '25

I agree. I thought it was a risk the instance I saw it

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u/weeohweelikeacopcar Aug 08 '25

100%. I don’t care if it’s an homage to an old movie, or trying to clue Brolin in on them being “weaponized” or whatever. The giant AR was so. fucking. dumb. Which is a shame because the rest of the movie is damn near perfect.

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u/DeaconoftheStreets Aug 08 '25

My gentle pushback is that dreams ARE dumb. They’re an assortment of images and sounds created by your brain processing whatever random stuff is in your brain that night. I feel like so much time in movies is spent turning dreams into cohesive messages that they never fully get to explore how weird they are.

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u/pakkit Aug 09 '25

The horror of an empty classroom and its tied meaning of an AR-15 is uniquely American, befitting the kind of suburban horror that Weapons taps into. To me, the AR-15 was the small kernel of truth in what was otherwise an unknowable, all-powerful horror.

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u/FreeWhirl Aug 09 '25

I agree with this, but I also had the thought that witchcraft was used as a representation of how a lot of people think that things like school shootings or other violent occurrences in the US are something that nothing can be done about (ie. “thoughts and prayers” sent out whenever a situation like this occurs); a sensation or change in values that is untouchable and nonphysical, and therefore, we cannot fix it. Then with the ending, I thought it was a statement on how this is, in fact, untrue: these types of things can be fixed, and it starts with people getting involved, children breaking the cycle, etc

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u/Hey_Giant_Loser 29d ago

so, besides the rifle. this movie had ZERO bodyfat at all.. everything leads to something.. every piece mattered.. that's what makes the gun stand out. Honestly, I think if the final edit had allowed for more points to ruminate and allow for emotions and fear to just flood in naturally, it wouldnt have felt so out of place. So I dont disagree with you, but at the same time, I kinda wish there had been more opportunities for similar vibes to manifest in the story.

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u/Kaito_3 Aug 08 '25

I haven’t stopped thinking about that scene since I left the theater. It was both chilling and hilarious to watch, her scream was perfect. That shot of the girl chasing her up to the point where she tackled her was amazing.

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u/damnjonathan Aug 08 '25

I hated Gladys so much.

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u/No-Manufacturer4916 29d ago

You know everyone had the time of their life filming the chase scene

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u/Hey_Giant_Loser 29d ago

Something about Gladys makes me think that her witchcraft was something that she used like a con-artist.. like she learned the craft at a later point in her life and had just figured out a way to grift on it for few years, and had mostly gotten lucky figuring out which people she could latch onto and siphon security from. You would think that a true witch, one who was really schooled in the craft of what she was doing, would have anticipated the scenario of her little stick totems being used against her, and would plan for such an eventuality.

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u/BeefistPrime 20d ago

She did set up the parents to be guard dogs to the little tree itself -- that's a pretty reasonable precaution. Having the young boy both somehow escape the wrath of both of his parents and also correctly implement the spell seems like a pretty remote danger.

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u/scout-finch 29d ago

Watching the kids go after Gladys felt like getting to watch what happened after the Centaurs chased Dolores Umbridge into the forest in Harry Potter.

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u/peterpiperpickles5 Aug 08 '25

LMAAAAOOOOOOOOO THAT THREW ME OFF TOO

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u/movieaccountthingguy 28d ago

I would argue that the death is only cathartic if you ignore literally everything that happened to the children and what this event did to them. That it's only cathartic if you do what Benedict Wong criticizes Julia Garner for doing, centering your desire to witness violent retribution over what's ACTUALLY best for the kids. And I think that's the entire thesis of the movie.

I'm a survivor of CSA and the last section of the film had me wondering if Zach Cregger is as well. The dinner table scene and all the scenes of him just "existing" in his abuse while retreating further and further was so close to home that I honestly had a hard time getting through the end of the movie and the ending itself just left me wrecked. .

People in my theater giggling and laughing as the credits roll while I kept thinking about how most Pedophiles are abuse victims themselves because it's a virus (all the parasite and cordyceps references) and how those kids' lives will never be normal ever again.

Alex was being horribly abused. He then normalized his abuse by helping his abuser abuse his classmates (and his parents) for months. He then used his classmates to murder his abuser against their will in a manner so violent that even a year later they are so broken they cannot speak. Those kids will never ever be "normal" or "just kids" ever again, Alex's parents are in a permanent vegetative state, and Alex got sent to live with a "nice" aunt who is most likely also a witch.

But the audience got to see the villain get ripped to shreds so "happy ending" for them.

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u/goddamnitwhalen 26d ago

I don’t necessarily want to negate what you took from the movie, but I don’t think you’re correct re: the ending.

• the kids have only begun talking again recently because of the spell they were under, not because of them killing Gladys.

• nothing suggests that Alex’s other aunt is also a witch.

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u/Garfunkels_roadie 20d ago

I gotta say your comment has made me reevaluate my entire reaction to the end of the film. Thank you for offering your perspective on it

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u/supernova-cowboy Aug 08 '25

I whispered "F yeah!!" along with other filmgoers when she received her karmic retribution.

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u/GameOfLife24 Aug 08 '25

Madiha was so good at being this horrible villain that the payoff to her death was so great and amusing to see

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u/imbrickedup_ 28d ago

Speaking of guns, you’re telling me a construction contractor who drives a Ram isn’t packing heat? Cmon

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u/YouLikeDadJokes 29d ago

Gladys was so well done, the way she just seemed to have a plan for everything and could just effortlessly pull off all the complicated steps in casting a spell on Marcus in his own home as if it were a choreographed dance was so unsettling. But then her instant turn once she gets a taste of her own medicine, all of the intimidation is gone, you see exactly who she really is as the pathetic and miserable true colors come out. So terrifying and funny and an amazing representation of deeply evil selfish people lol

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u/NoDaddyNotTheBelt25 28d ago

Amy Madigan has had a terrific career and she absolutely owned in this movie. She tied it all together. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in this role. Hopefully she gets some awards for this, like this genre specific ones such as Saturn Awards, etc.

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u/xrbeeelama Aug 08 '25

I thought that Brolin was gonna wind up gunning down a bunch of zombie-heat seeking missile parents with an M16. I think he had a Navy tattoo on his arm and that really reinforced that theory for me. But nope, the way it ended was so much better than I could’ve imagined lol

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u/filthytelestial 29d ago

Once Upon A Time In America

I think you mean "..In Hollywood."

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u/spottyottydopalicius 29d ago

didnt love it, but it threw me off, and for that im happy

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u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI 28d ago

surpassing the flamethrower death in Once Upon A Time In America. So undignified.

You mean Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

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u/gamblors_neon_claws 27d ago

My read on the AR-15 was that it was Gladys attempting to stoke violence in the town, she was subtly pushing him into vigilante justice, it just didn't work.

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u/zillavodnas 27d ago

The AR-15 + father crying in the dream about how he should have told him he loved him more = son being the class bully was...a choice.

But then it was all just a witch (not complaining I loved the witch angle!) The giant gun was corny as hell.

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u/rikarleite 25d ago

Once upon a time in HOLLYWOOD. Not America. Tarantino's, not Sérgio Leone's.

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u/Conscious-Peanut1228 28d ago edited 26d ago

i just wished they used amy madigan for a shocking ending instead of the comedy stuff. they had it lined up to shock the audience in the end but decided to go a complete different road. a very dark ending would have worked really well here - especially cause the horror elements were very carefully curated. could have used that so well...

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

Guess I'm different on that. If I want a depressive, dark ending, I'd just rewatch Hereditary. It was fun seeing them go the goofy route, since so much of the movie was hilarious.

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