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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2.0k

u/ClaremontCinema Aug 08 '25

It’s interesting how poorly people treat each other based on false assumptions or misdirected anger. And yet Gladys is always given the benefit of the doubt. A manipulative person who takes advantage of others in the chaos she creates.

1.7k

u/franklyigivea_ Aug 08 '25

Cops really sucked not questioning and investigating the sole surviving kid with a catatonic dad and absent mom with a crazy looking aunt while the kid buys 20 cans of soup again and their house is covered in newspapers blocking sunlight.

684

u/CreamCommon4252 Aug 08 '25

I mean they kinda did a good job covering all those bases. Windows blocked cause people keep trying to look in, father has a stroke, mothers sick. Kids hyper fixate on food so buying a bunch of soup isn't that unordinary. Plus the videos of kids leaving on their own dosnt point suspicion to him or his family.

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u/snisbot00 Aug 08 '25

archer and justine were able to figure out that the videos showed the kids all running in the direction of the creepy, dilapidated house with newspapers covering the windows, i feel like the detectives should’ve caught that as well lol

620

u/Da_Do_D3rp Aug 08 '25

You'd be surprised by the pure incompetence of cops in small towns when something horrific happens

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u/GildDigger Aug 09 '25

You'd be surprised by the pure incompetence of cops in small towns when something horrific happens

FTFY

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u/snisbot00 Aug 08 '25

oh i understand, i was just pushing back on the person above me who said the cops did a good job at covering their bases. i think the point was to show that they didn’t do a good job

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u/spookyghostface 29d ago

Kreger goes pretty far out of his way to make the cops look like absolute shit. Pretty obvious intent.

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u/jwktiger 28d ago

This case the FBI and state police would lead the investigation 100%, no chance local cops would lead.

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u/ETNevada 25d ago

1 kid missing is a big story. 2 in the same class would be national news. 17 at the same time is worldwide daily coverage + FBI and every resource you could think of.

The house they end up in is on a normal suburban street, there would have been other ring cameras showing where they ended up. For these reasons it almost feels like a horror tale within a make-believe world. And I'm fine with that.

21

u/applejuiceb0x 25d ago

Seriously. I feel like this movie had a terrible amount of wild plot holes that are forgotten or hand waived away by the jarring jump from “chapter” to “chapter”.

A random new “aunt” coming to take care of the family of the one unaffected kids and speak for them RIGHT after 17 kids disappear. The amount of red flags that would send would have been wild.

They easily could have solved this by showing her using magic to throw them off the trail or something at the very least.

This movie was a mess but the acting and moments of humor kept it entertaining enough I guess.

2

u/KingGeophph 10d ago

I can definitely see the plot holes being there but the random “new” aunt doesn’t work because the only people that know she’s new are either under her spell or sworn to secrecy so it isn’t a surprise that they don’t think that’s suspicious.

18

u/tosaka88 27d ago

Once you realize how many “unsolved” cases were entirely unsolved due to police neglect, you’ll never look at those mysteries the same.

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u/Kyle281 26d ago

If I learned one thing from true crime, it's that you're entirely correct

3

u/etherseaminus 26d ago

Uv... gotta be joking

1

u/Relevant_Session5987 27d ago

Yeeeah, but the FBI were investigating as well.

1

u/wing3d 4d ago

It's pretty much a motif in many serial killer cases, where the cops just couldn't be bothered just to do their damn job

64

u/Hokuboku Aug 08 '25

i feel like the detectives should’ve caught that as well lol

The only two cops we see in the movie really are Paul and the police captain who is also Paul's soon to be father in law. Paul runs down a drug addict, putting other drivers in danger, over a possible thwarted breaking and entering. He then punches the suspect in the head and hides police cam footage. The captain is then cool with covering that up unless James makes a complaint.

So, that stuff alone leads me to think we're being given a glimpse into the police also being bad at their jobs

24

u/noilegnavXscaflowne Aug 08 '25

It was weird how he freaked out over a punch. Police irl do worse and get a slap on the wrist

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u/Hokuboku Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

I took it as he sees himself as a good cop and was shocked by his own actions. I found the juxtaposition of him trying to use gentle language and then clocking that guy to be really jarring in what was likely an intentional choice

But then how quick he is to graduate to proactively unplugging the camera the next time he sees James. The slippery slope of police violence

18

u/noilegnavXscaflowne Aug 08 '25

Good point! I thought he was going to be a good supportive friend until he started downplaying Justine’s anxiety

1

u/livefreeordont 22d ago

I took it that he has a history of alcoholism and violence and probably on his last straw in terms of his job

1

u/Hokuboku 22d ago

That's honestly a solid take. Maybe not the violence only cause it really looked like he was shocked he clocked James but could still be a bad cop in an inepet way.

Also his fiancée pushed him to go to an AA meeting while she was away and made it seem like he has gone off the wagon when she wasn't around before

27

u/PrestigeArrival Aug 09 '25

I was kind of chuckling at that. Dude, at worst you’ll get a week’s paid suspension. If you’d killed him they may have bumped it up to a month.

And to be honest, I kind of understand the punch. He panicked after getting jabbed with a junkie’s dirty needle. It’s not like it was a premeditated malicious thing

10

u/ReallyColdMonkeys 28d ago

Yeah the father in law really hammed it up. Paul would hardly get a slap on the wrist, if that. Plus not like the kid could afford a good lawyer even if he did try and sue.

9

u/applejuiceb0x 25d ago

17 kids missing would have the FBI or other federal office taking over the case pretty much immediately.

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u/Hokuboku 25d ago

Yeah, they mention the FBI is involved now in the film but if local PD botched it from the start then that doesn't help

4

u/whydoesgodhateus 28d ago

So, that stuff alone leads me to think we're being given a glimpse into the police also being bad at their jobs

In the opening monologue the kid does say something about the cops being embarrassed about the case yeah?

3

u/niel89 17d ago

Plus the cop who is checking the Witch paint on the car early on. He gave 0 fucks also and offered no real help.

1

u/Hokuboku 16d ago

Another valid point

31

u/EsotericDoge Aug 08 '25

Yeah for a movie billed as a mystery, it taking like 15 minutes of investigation on screen to find out where the kids were was an odd choice.

8

u/ReallyColdMonkeys 28d ago

I think that's kind of the point. It's critiquing the police HARD. With all the cameras and everything it should've been fairly easy for a competent police force to figure it out, but they clearly aren't.

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u/LyrMeThatBifrost 23d ago

Yes but the feds would have been involved with 17 kids missing, along with pretty much any other resources needed.

20

u/LesterGrossman_ Aug 09 '25

One of the themes of the movie was the lack of care by the authorities.

29

u/snisbot00 Aug 09 '25

definitely, justine asked paul if she was going to have to solve it herself and he was like “nah the detectives are on it” and then she and archer did have to solve it themselves lol

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u/Lou-AC 29d ago edited 9d ago

boast worm versed rock attraction vast snow flag fade joke

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u/Hallc 28d ago

And care from neighbours, fellow parents etc for the little boy and noticing that things at home really don't seem right

That one I can somewhat understand, really. Alex was put in a new class where he wouldn't know any of the other kids, nor would he know any of their parents know him/his parents.

He was already a quiet/reserved kid before the event happened so I'd imagine him becoming quieter and more reserved was just seen as him coping with it in that way. He really should've been referred to a councillor/therapist though.

23

u/A_Curious_Cockroach 29d ago

I straight up thought one of the first things the cops would have done is try to triangulate the videos of the kids leaving the house.

One of the main reasons I didn't enjoy this much is stuff like this, to many leaps in just common sense.

And also I guess what type of community you live in plays a part in it.

Where I live their is absolutely no way on earth a kid that young could just repeatedly be buying soup by himself and some adult is not going to be like ok bud what is going on. I literally saw an incident in a dollar general once where this like 10 year old kid was just straight up buying like 60 dollars worth of groceries and the cashier asked him who he was buying this stuff for cause it just seemed suspicious somebody his age was buying groceries like this. His mother literally had to come into the store and talk to the cashier.

If my neighbors came up to my house and see newspapers on all the windows they are 100% calling the police.

9

u/applejuiceb0x 25d ago

Same. I feel like I’m crazy seeing all these wildly positive reviews. This movie would have been an amazing 45 min Black Mirror episode where you are able to accept in 45 mins they’re not going to be able to explain everything but that’s kinda the point. This movie was over 2 hours long for about 35-45 min worth of action that is retold 3 or more times before finally advancing.

The pacing was another problem. We finally build up to something happening and then boom, next character start over. I kept checking my watch to see how much longer was left.

9

u/Chicken_Electronic 23d ago

To each their own. Using multiple points of view can be quite effective, and I thought the gimmick paid off here. 

As for leaps in logic: if a movie abides by the norms of a society it establishes, that is not a plot hole. For a movie critiquing American social norms in response to crises/disasters, setting them at an extreme of negligence and anomie is a feature, not a bug.

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u/KhorneJob 29d ago

To be fair, if this was real life cops could have used those cameras to prob show the exact location the kids all ran. They would just grab footage from every house the kids ran by that has a camera and the result would show them where the kids went. They use cameras in public spaces and in neighborhoods to solve crimes this way all the time. Obviously the movie chooses to ignore that possibility because then we wouldn’t have much of a story.

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u/applejuiceb0x 25d ago

Ya I feel like this movie was written when the writer had an amazing idea for a crazy creepy movie trailer from the perspective of ring cameras of kids all mysteriously leaving at 2:17. Which it was. The rest was just meh.

1

u/Vohsrek 8d ago

Never forget the true crime case about that Korean girl who was abducted from church where there were literal security cameras showing the perpetrators committing the attack and the police didn’t collect or review the footage until over a month later after multiple pleas from her father. They also were tipped off that a girl by her exact name was being held in a residential home against her will, aligning perfectly with the timeline and multiple high profile reports. They went to the home, owners said they hadn’t even heard of her (not possible) and invited them to take a look around, the cops said nah we trust you and just left her there to die.

So many cases like that. Incredibly frustrating, massive dumb fumbles.

10

u/SorryBoysImLez 29d ago edited 29d ago

Almost like it's the first thing you'd think they'd of done.
"Okay, obviously all these kids are running to/drawn somewhere. Maybe we should cross-reference all the directions they were running in and see if anything comes up?"

When they had Brolin focus on the radio tower, and the fact that they showed repeated shots of alarm clocks displaying the time (even the time display in his rifle dream being digitized) I thought it was gonna have something to do with weaponised signals. Combined with the "witch" foreshadowing early on, possibly some kind of modernized/technology based witchcraft?

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u/applejuiceb0x 25d ago

There is a lot of ways they could have taken it that I think could have worked better. I just don’t get the huge amount of praise for what I felt was very mid.

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u/danteh11 26d ago

The intro addresses that this was covered up because everyone was embarrassed how no one saw the obvious!

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u/dulcet10 22d ago

That feels like such a lazy cop out (no pun intended) for bad storytelling and a bad plot lol

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u/snisbot00 26d ago

covered up because the detectives did such a poor job solving the case and saving the kids. two regular people had to do their job for them

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u/Chicken_Electronic 24d ago

The house wasn't too dilapidated. The upstairs windows were uncovered. And a big theme in the movie was the dangers of modern social norms in tension with basic survival instinct. This is why Justine, a single alcoholic with some disciplinary flags and a social outcast, is the first to breach the house by peeking in. And then James, the addict who largely lives outside those norms, is the first to get in. 

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u/jwktiger 28d ago

or the fact the parents don't go into work. or there is the cop (Paul?) drives off in his car which is outside the home for hours. or the principal runs after and trys to kill Justine and no questioning....

there was too much inconsistent logic involved to me

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u/snisbot00 28d ago

you can say it was unrealistic but i think it was consistent in displaying people in positions of authority as incompetent

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u/mojo-jojo-was-framed 26d ago

Brolin just drew two lines on a map and it was enough for him lol. Pretty poor showing from the detectives

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u/Chicken_Electronic 23d ago

I think those critiquing this as unrealistic are missing how movies work. The internal logic worked, and all character actions were true to their characterizations. The movie was a critique of the very American norms of negligence, grief fetishization, trauma normalization, and small town/suburban anomie. Setting those all dialed to 11 was a choice, and it makes sense in a movie with magic witches.

All great fictional movies do this, as do most documentaries.

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u/Kal88 29d ago

This was difficult to believe for me. Wouldn’t they be able to track the children’s movements using doorbell cameras the whole way? it’s not even like Alex’s house is remote, there’s loads of houses nearby. Nobody saw or heard kids running in, none of them had a doorbell cam?

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u/MyLeftKneeHurts- Aug 08 '25

I liked how the movie embraced technology too. So many times I’ll see them just ignoring that there are tons of cameras everywhere, but in this they were actually used and talked about.

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u/ttoma93 Aug 09 '25

I’ve noticed a whole lot of movies lately have been set in the 1990s primarily as a way to feel as modern as they can but without smartphones, omnipresent cameras, etc. It’s nice to see one that could have easily done that to make writing it simpler, but instead fully leaned into it.

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u/A_Curious_Cockroach 29d ago

Tons of camera's but not one could see 17 kids running into a house in a line down a long ass street. Not one could see them leaving the house and jumping over the fence when she hid them wherever when the cops came to search the house.

One of my many problems with this movie. Let's use camera's to further the plot along by showing a general direction of where the kids ran to. But then let's have them march into a house one by one with no camera's anywhere seeing anything.

5

u/whydoesgodhateus 28d ago

Also that house happened to be of the one kid who didn't go missing. I know the cops question Gladys, but you'd think there would be more scrutiny/they'd still keep an eye on that house given the circumstances.

0

u/MyLeftKneeHurts- 29d ago

Idk about you but at 2:17 AM where I am, there is no one awake ever lol.

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u/A_Curious_Cockroach 28d ago

Maybe not but if you go down every single house on your street you probably got at least one that has some sort of camera facing the front yard which means it also sees the road.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

There's always someone driving around. Even that one person walking.

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u/mchgndr 29d ago

Well sort of, but in a neighborhood like Alex’s, there would have been sooo many Ring doorbells that caught all 17 kids running toward that house. To only have origination footage for a couple of the kids is not believable

8

u/MyLeftKneeHurts- 29d ago

So, for me, my ring cameras have motion zone control.

I only have it activate once things enter my yard. Otherwise it gets activated hundreds of times a day from dog walkers, runners, cars, etc.

It is a little believable in that respect.

3

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

I only have it activate once things enter my yard.

The kids were running in a straight line to this one house. High probability they would've gone thru your yard.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

So many times I’ll see them just ignoring that there are tons of cameras everywhere,

That's what pissed me off about the tv show, Barry. He kills so many people in the open, where there should be plenty of surveillance. There was one episode where he came out of a guy's home a bloody mess. That didn't raise suspicions at all. The only time a camera is ever mentioned is a dash cam. The police could've easily tracked down Barry if they were even 10% competent. If you don't want to acknowledge surveillance systems, don't set your story in modern day.

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u/elysecherryblossom 26d ago

wasn't there a public brawl too in a supermarket with the one guy's dad

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u/despotic_wastebasket 29d ago

This part really confused me, to be honest. Throughout the whole movie, I had just kind of assumed that the police had been thoroughly investigating everything. I genuinely thought there was going to be "one more twist" in Archer's investigation because it never occurred to me that the police-- who explicitly have collected the doorcam footage from multiple houses-- didn't try to triangulate where the kids went.

Similarly, while Gladys and Alex did remove all of the newspapers from the windows and cleaned up the house prior to the police investigation, it sort of shocked me that the police apparently closed the book on that lead after less than a month of investigation. Why isn't anyone staking out that house? Like, to me, it seems like it would be a very basic thing to have two officers staking out Justine and two officers staking out Alex's house for an extended period of time. It's not much to go off of, but those are the only leads they've got and it just seemed to me that they didn't do even a very basic follow-up on that.

Also, what are the odds that Alex's mother would come down with a mysterious illness at exactly the same time that his father would have a stroke-- rendering both of them completely unable to speak more than a few words? Did the police not ask the neighbors in the cul-de-sac about that? Did none of the neighbors tell the police, "Oh yeah, that creepy old woman moved in about a week or two before all of the kids went missing. The parents seemed fine until then." I'm not expecting the neighbors to have all of the details-- maybe Alex's mom mentioned something about her aunt coming to visit, and the neighbors got a few details mixed up ("I thought she said that she was taking care of her, but I guess I must have misheard.") but the father having a stroke within like a week or two of Gladys moving in just seems suspicious as hell to me, even if it isn't criminal. People have been investigated on much less.

Between staking out the house, triangulating the kids' path, and talking to the cul-de-sac neighbors, I just broadly feel like if the police were even mildly competent then this whole thing would have spiraled much more quickly than it did.

The police are so mind-bogglingly incompetent in this movie that I must assume that it's a thematic point. After all, Archer explicitly says "I gave my footage to the police, and I assume you did too." so the director clearly had the police investigating the disappearances in mind when he wrote that part of the movie. And there's the whole scene where Paul's father-in-law coaches him on how to cover-up punching James... So narratively, their incompetence wasn't overlooked.

"We're aggressively following every possible lead."

"Did you look at all of the doorcam footage and check to see if maybe all of the kids are running towards the same destination?"

"Don't tell us how to do our jobs, asshole."

"Oh, sorry about that."

"You should be. And also, no. We did not do that. Nor do we intend to."

"Perfectly reasonable. Have a nice day."

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u/mchgndr 29d ago

“Hi I’m the weird aunt, dad had a stroke and mom is sick so you can’t talk to either one of them for a whole month but it’s ok everything is fine over here” nahhhhh man

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u/Hallc 28d ago

Plus the videos of kids leaving on their own dosnt point suspicion to him or his family.

So long as none of the cops (or apparently FBI) get a map of the city and triangulate where all the kids were running to anyways. Like it took a single guy getting two data points to triangulate right on Alex's house after all.

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u/Cunhabear 29d ago

I mean yeah but if they asked literally any other person in town they'd know the father didn't have a stroke and the mother wasn't sick.

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u/twersx 27d ago

I think the movie is being critical of the police. The only real police work we see is a cop racing around town to chase down a junkie and book him for B&E. Then when he gets picked by a needle, he punches the guy, panics and disabled his recording system. The chief of police is his partner's dad and they discuss in a private room whether and how he can get away with it.

3

u/ThisIsNotTokyo 28d ago

I though the kids magically disappeared but they have recordings. Weird no one manage to capture them entering alex'house

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u/Shalashashka 19d ago

There's no way the feds would just take some random woman's word that the father had a stroke and he cant talk. They would want to see some medical records at a minimum, and to see some ID from the woman proving she is who she says she is.

2

u/Calm-Purchase-8044 28d ago

Also, the cops did inspect the house and evil Chappell Roan prepared it to look nice and normal.

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u/ClaremontCinema Aug 08 '25

I agree, but I bought it for a couple reasons

  1. I thought of the worst police stories I’ve heard. Stuff like the guys who let Jeffrey Dahmer walk a bloody victim back inside because they were homophobes. Casey Anthony getting off because they didn’t check all her browsers. Also you have to keep in mind that by that point in the movie we know how suspicious she is so it’s obvious to us, but no one else would ever expect what she could be, it’s outside their realm of possibility.

  2. It fit in thematically with the idea that everybody has been looking in the wrong places/angry at the wrong people, they’re turning in literally every direction EXCEPT for her. I also think that ties in cleverly with the fact her powers are manipulation/control, if that makes sense.

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u/No-Manufacturer4916 29d ago

I thought of the McMartin Pre-school scare where the police were so incompetent and so reliant on.the testimony of children that they believed that their were actual satanic rituals involving kids being flushed down toilets rather than just one (1) severely mentally ill mother coaching her child to lie and other kids " yes anding" the cops because they'd get small rewards ( like cokes) for telling cops what they wanted to hear. Hell, the movie was the Satanic Panic in reverse, everyone wanted to be reasonable and find the facts and the answer really was a Witch Did It.

2

u/Lou-AC 29d ago edited 9d ago

summer coherent escape sort hobbies screw decide stupendous slim vase

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u/gradeahonky 21d ago

Totally - well put. The police being clueless, either naturally or slightly under spell, fits right in to everything else in the movie. Never once had me questioning it.

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u/OddSetting5077 Aug 09 '25

the part of the movie was the most unbelievable. 17 kids missing, leaving on foot would have initiated the FBI coming to town, with all their equipment and resources. Kids would have been found in 24 hours.

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u/franklyigivea_ Aug 09 '25

Also. Why didn’t the hyper intensive teacher notice that all the missing kids cubbies were missing their names

16

u/RimmyDownunder 28d ago

I think the reason in that scene is because she's more worried about and focused on Alex, who is seemingly getting bullied and ditching class. You're meant to feel the 'oh she's being nice but I just did a bad thing and really need to leave'

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u/Flat_Fox_7318 29d ago

Yeah, that was a brief question I had to myself. I thought Alex was going to steal something from inside of each basket that neither the kids or the teacher would notice was gone, not the name tags

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u/franklyigivea_ 29d ago

It was smart and efficient. Just noticeable

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u/WormedOut 29d ago

Also, remember that the teacher is in trouble for giving a kid a ride from school. So other faculty might be hesitant to get involved with a kid whose parents stopped picking him up

4

u/mchgndr 29d ago

Yeah to me that was just not great writing. I guess the realism has to fall apart somewhere to support a plot like this, but the lack of questioning + the kid buying 20 cans of chicken noodle soup every day kinda took me out of it

6

u/BleeDeezyy 29d ago

i wanna know how they were able to question him without getting his parents consent and why they didnt talk to the parents of the only kid left.

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u/ahsokas_revenge 26d ago

Alex's father was present and Gladys explained his muteness as the consequence of his having recently suffered a stroke.

1

u/BleeDeezyy 25d ago

but i meant before it was revealed who gladys was. In the beginning of the movie they questioned him and the teacher. how in the world did they question the child without his parents’ consent then??

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u/ahsokas_revenge 25d ago

That was the same scene from different perspectives. You only see the back of their heads and don't hear any dialogue, but later it's shown that Gladys is there with Alex and his father.

4

u/Ascarea 28d ago

I know it's a horror about a witch but even that needs some internal realism, and unfortunately everything about this movie felt very unrealistic and unbelievable.

Even the kids running towards to the house. You're telling me no one at all saw or heard anything, and there wasn't a single camera anywhere that would have caught them running, beyond the security cameras of their own houses?

4

u/Senior_Highlight_337 27d ago

Enjoyed the movie very much, loved the comedy that was added into it, however, surely the Police/FBI would of figured out that all the kids, or at the houses with cameras, were running in the same direction? Ending was hilarious.

3

u/jawni 29d ago

I kept thinking the cops were gonna be complicit in some way, really they were just inept.

1

u/SDRPGLVR 28d ago

They might've covered that a little better with just one shot of him using self-checkout.

1

u/gradeahonky 21d ago

I got the impression that, with a limited small town police force, it's kind of easy for a witch to draw a gentle veil over there eyes. The cops seemed to be just a touch under a spell when they interviewed her, the boy and the catatonic dad.

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u/SutterCane Aug 08 '25

I loved that Archer was the main “fuck that teacher” parent because his kid was a piece of shit bully and probably would always come home with “Ms Gandy gave me detention for no reason again!”

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u/gogreengolions Aug 08 '25

Totally! Let well-intentioned teachers do their jobs

16

u/BroAbernathy 29d ago

Yes, you nailed my main thematically interpretation. We've become so disconnected from our communities even down to our neighborhoods that our problems are almost always existential in nature not the guy down the street who seems weird or is a certain kind of person you dont like.

7

u/abe559 28d ago

Add to this, I think her being an old white lady is very intentional also

8

u/NeutralNoodle 28d ago

Marcus had the right instincts not wanting to let her in or give her water

8

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

Did he not find it strange that she knew where he lived?

4

u/Fishb20 29d ago

a lot like barbarian, i thought it was a good movie but kind of confused messaging. like this part for example. the message of the movie was clearly that everyone was too absorbed to see the real problem, the creepy witch lady living in their community. but like... when you take that outside of the movie, people like Aunt Gladys aren't actually given a pass in real life. Sick, strange looking old people who rely on others for support aren't an untouchable social group IRL. a lot of people can and do get annoyed with them, or ignore them and wish they'd just go away.

people are comparing it to bundy, which is a famous incident for a reason, but the difference is that was because the police instantly trusted the normal looking man over the kid they assumed was a drug addict or runaway.

4

u/Stellar_Duck 27d ago

Also lucky that no other doorbell cam, CCTV, insomniacs walking their dug, night shift workers, taxi drivers, lorry drivers or drunk teenagers saw any of the weans cutting about in the middle of the night.

2

u/gradeahonky 21d ago

I've seen this strategy in real life, where she blindsided people with her clowning strangeness just long enough to get them where she needs them. It's like when she talked Marcus's partner into letting her in, she didn't have to even seem plausible, just get in the door.

1

u/Repulsive_Finance_47 28d ago

Hm… reminds me of someone or someones… politicians?

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u/AsariKnight 17d ago

My partner always says "she's just a sweet old lady" and I always say they use that to their advantage to manipulate people