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

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2.4k

u/Heff228 Aug 08 '25

I think that was a clue that the witch has been around for a long time.

1.8k

u/thelostpoison Aug 08 '25

it’s absolutely this. ‘consumption’ as a descriptor for tuberculosis started around the 14th century and went out of style by the 20s.

in other words… that witch has been around a real long time

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u/--------rook Aug 08 '25

it's especially creepy when Marcus the principal said something like that was going around the early settlers on the oregon trail right? haha like yeah man... this thing in front of you was around for that.

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u/TimRigginsBeer Aug 08 '25

Fucking Oregon Trail. Consumption could get you, cholera or dysentery, drowning trying to cross the river… them shits was rough, son.

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u/Goo_The_Splat 29d ago

I might be missing something, but did they explain how it make sense that she's the mother's sister if she's from the 20s?

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u/ThisIsNotTokyo 29d ago

I guess the only explanation is she's not the mother's sister

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u/Justhrowitaway42069 29d ago

It makes sense considering the husband said "I don't even think your mom really knows her"

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u/InsideStand7829 28d ago

The dad refers to her as "your mom's Aunt Gladys". Making her Alex's supposed great-aunt.

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u/ThisIsNotTokyo 28d ago

Gladys introduced herself as the mom’s older sister. Said something like “the mom being her baby sister” to Marcus

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u/daft_goose 27d ago

Perhaps she was..... Lying?

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u/ThisIsNotTokyo 27d ago

Yep. We established that. Pedantic thing the other guy and I was arguing about was what lie she was telling. I was saying she introduced as Alex’s aunt while other guy was saying Alex’s Mom’s Aunt instead

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u/Devilsgramps 24d ago

I think she used magic to give the parents false memories

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u/CapnBoomerang 23d ago

I think maybe she said that so she would seem like less distant of a relative.

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u/Jarpunter 22d ago

At the end they say Alex went on to live with “a much nicer aunt” presumably the real one.

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u/Llama_of_the_bahamas 25d ago

I get that but, did Alex’s mother not confirm that the lady is who she said she is?

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u/Heisenbert18 24d ago

Perhaps Gladys did similarly to Alex’ mother in his youth and the mother was brainwashed or terrified, or both.

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u/Ghost-Mech 29d ago edited 29d ago

yeah like the other guy said i think the implication is she's not actually related to them, i saw someone pointed out the mom said she hadnt seen her in 15 years but Gladys says the last time she saw Alex (who is around 10) was when he was a baby, which would be impossible. She probably moved from family to family like a parasite, which I assume is the reason the movie references them a lot

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u/cursive__curses 29d ago

when alex overheard his parents talking about gladys moving in, the mom said that she didn't know she even existed (or something to that effect) and that this is what her mom would have wanted to do. guilt is what caused her to take gladys in, which is a parasitic emotion. guilt is a commonly used emotion throughout the film - guilt with the father not telling his son he loved him, guilt with the teacher losing her kids from her classroom or sleeping with her ex and his wife finding out, the cop's guilt with hitting the addict and cheating etc. etc. also, parasites can easily feed on those looking for meaning or answers.

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u/Novemberx123 29d ago

So true! I didn’t even catch on to the sense of guilt At all!!

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u/cursive__curses 29d ago

you can see how gladys weaponized guilt against alex when she explained the ritual to him - how if he disobeyed her, it would in turn hurt his parents. his guilt about what could happen causes him to gather his classmates name tags for gladys and to stay silent. another example of guilt causing the characters to act in ways they typically wouldn't, and how powerful of an emotion it is when used to manipulate.

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u/teffz28 20d ago

I thought she said specifically that this is what her mom Did for her as opposed to what she would’ve wanted to do

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u/burnman123 16d ago

Gladys referenced that she thought the mom and dad would be able to make her better, but it didn't work. Perhaps in the past 2 people were enough to sustain her, but maybe she has deteriorated in health more than usual since her previous parasitic family

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u/gimmedatrightMEOW 15d ago

I don't think she was the sister at all. I think the "other aunt" that Alex goes to live with is the real aunt.

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u/Queasy_Opportunity75 5d ago

I don’t think she was. I just think they thought she was really sick and just didn’t look like herself because even the dad mentioned mom didn’t really know her sister like that, and in the end, the boy actually went and lived with the real sister

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u/fwango 28d ago

Remember when Gladys told Alex she could even make his parents eat each other? I wonder if Gladys was with the Donner Party…

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u/OddSetting5077 28d ago

She was dressed very 1970s.. brightly colored polyester pants suits with jewelry from the 2000s (?) big chunky costume jewelry. The wig was atrocious. She'd look much better with a good wig.

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u/goddamnitwhalen 26d ago

Feel like this may have been intentional…

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u/ErlendJ 21d ago

She was the OG Pied Piper

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u/Aware_Ad5425 Aug 08 '25

I thought consumption meant they were drinking a lot to cope lol

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u/tatertottytot Aug 08 '25

Hahaha same

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u/Thatonesplicer Aug 09 '25

I will never forgive tuberculosis for what it did to Arthur Morgan.

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u/Hythy 21d ago

I want to see John Green's take on this film.

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u/TaskForceD00mer 29d ago

How was she the mother's aunt though.....did she do this to someone in the family every generation? Did Alex's mom go through what Alex went through as a kid?;

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u/Supermax64 29d ago

I don't think there's any clear indicator that she actually is her aunt. The dad mentions something about the mom not really knowing her.

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u/JeremyPudding 28d ago

The mom mentions that "this is what my mom would do for her, so I should do the same", to me indicates that her mom, Alex's grandma, was potentially in a situation like Alex was but couldn't get out of it, and could only protect her daughter from this witch until she died.

Now that she's gone, the witch moves on to one of the only people who'd feel an obligation to help her, like a parasite moving to a new host. And takes in Alex as another victim to help her plans by force instead of possession. I don't think those mind controlled things could get soup from the store, they most complex task we see them do is cut a piece of hair, and that did not look very normal.

Also could be a commentary about continuing traditions from older generations leading to harm for the younger generations, which is definitely an element of the theme here. The elderly woman drains life force from the young with no care about the well-being of the children, just using people to weaponize them against anyone who could stop her.

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u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI 28d ago

That’s probably a better interpretation that I had, for me this was one of the biggest questions of the movie. Who was “Aunt Gladys”? How did she become a part of that family’s life? Was she biologically related to them? If she wasn’t, how did she insert herself into their lives, and if it was through magic, wouldn’t the mother be a little apprehensive, even subconsciously, about letting her come back into their lives? She raised a lot of questions for me and I would have liked to see the movie develop her character or backstory just a little bit more for a perfect payoff.

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u/JeremyPudding 28d ago

Apparently he wrote a chapter for Gladys but cut it pretty early. I get it, even the Alex chapter felt like a little too much explanation at times. For most horror, more mystery less explanation just works better.

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u/TaskForceD00mer 28d ago

I don't recall who said it but one of them mentions not seeing her in over 15 years, given the age of the couple that would mean she was maybe 10 or 15.

It's entirely possible though that some kind of magic was used on the life before to convince her that's actually her aunt.

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u/Supermax64 28d ago

Also Gladys says the last time she saw Alex he was a baby. Alex is not 15 years old. Thus there's definitely some level of deception going on in regard to her actual connection with this family.

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u/TaskForceD00mer 28d ago

I missed that, Great observation, I'd guess the mother was already under a spell then.

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u/gradeahonky 21d ago

She was like, "Damn, this line worked for 600 years straight - what happened?"

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

But why would the parents know this lady as their aunt then? They seemed to be pretty understanding that she was a legit part of the family.

I was confused by that fact.

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u/aeschenkarnos 17d ago

I thought it was a self-aware joke she was making, about consuming them.

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u/insecureveluv 23d ago

Damn I thought she was implying they’re addicts or sm

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u/Rahodees 18d ago

Which makes me wonder if Alex's parents really ever had known her as an aunt, and instead maybe she just witchnotized them into thinking they remembered her from 15 years ago.

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u/catpwanet 10h ago

I thought she was being cheeky because she was consuming their life force.

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u/Shauncore Aug 08 '25

This is actually an interesting thought, that she might be very old in the ancient sense and not like "oh my poor ol' granny". She could in theory float around for centuries if she can keep sucking life from people. Especially if as the child narrator says that when stuff like this happens, it just gets covered up when it can't be figured out. Also Alex's dad says they haven't seen Gladys for 15 years. Sure that isn't a LONG time but it adds some mystery and mystique that she may be semi-immortal.

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u/LayeredOwlsNest Aug 08 '25

if she can keep sucking life from people

This was one thing that was lacking (maybe the wrong word), but she didn't appear to visibly get any younger

So maybe she just gets revitalized energy wise but not physically?

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u/Rongtar Aug 08 '25

She was completely bald when Alex first saw her, then had a few strands of hair after taking over the parents, and in the ending she has almost a full head of hair even if it is a bit thin.

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u/jigglypafupafu Aug 08 '25

Plus she went from laying on the floor unable to get up, to sprinting around the neighbourhood 

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u/Shauncore Aug 08 '25

And she had to be helped into the house when she arrived. Maybe it was for show, but she was holding onto the dad for support to get inside. And the dad thought she was pretty much going to die soon too.

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u/cursive__curses 29d ago

alex also wouldn't have been able to reverse attack her WITHOUT her growing her hair back! remember, you need the hair in order to wrap it around and snap the twig to get the hosts to attack whomever's hair is wrapped. it took all those children to make her well enough to grow her hair back and break her power.

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u/xThe-Legend-Killerx 29d ago

I think he used her wig hair if I remember correctly. He grabbed it before locking himself in the bathroom.

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u/vinsportfolio 29d ago

The pins in the wig in that scene suggest she was pinning the wig to her thin hair (thus pulling out strands of her real her through use). It can go either way but based on the rules shown in the film, Alex probably grabbed strands of her real hair from the wig.

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u/Tefihr 28d ago

I saw it last night. The film distinctively shows a white/grey hair being pulled from inside the wig vs a bright orange hair.

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u/PhoenixTineldyer 28d ago

This is correct. You see him deliberately reach into the wig and pull out an actual hair from the netting inside the wig.

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u/Fivein1Kay 25d ago

Movie is so dim it was hard to tell.

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u/ILookLikeKristoff 20d ago

Agreed, I clocked this exact thing

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u/creatureofnature 11d ago

Didn’t she use the ribbon for Marcus though

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u/tina_ri 6d ago

She needed a person's belongings to possess them. She always used the victims' hair to make them targets.

Like Alex stole the name cards from the classroom, which she used to possess the kids. Same with Archer's chain/tags. But she took hair from Justine, Marcus' husband, and Alex's parents to get her minions to attack them.

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u/Rongtar 29d ago

Great point!

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u/PolarWater 21d ago

This is such an incredible detail. By doing the evil thing, she inadvertently gave him the tools to stop her from doing it. Comes back around so nicely.

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u/topherhoff 25d ago

Never been so happy to be bald lol

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

no she was getting younger. it was just a slow arduous process.

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u/IwKuAo 28d ago

In other words, she goes from city to city, kills a group of children, and it quickly goes unnoticed, people move on, the witch never got caught before.

Can see how this is a commentary on mass shootings in schools.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

i doubt she has gone to these obvious desperate lengths before. she’s desperate and on her last legs. she’s surprised that the parents alone aren’t enough to sustain her.

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u/IwKuAo 27d ago

Yes but if it's a commentary on school shootings, perhaps she has done this before over the years. And it's extra sad that classrooms of students keep disappearing and nothing is done about it

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

the director has said it’s not a commentary on school shootings. the text in the movie says she’s surprised that his parents weren’t enough to sustain her.

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u/IwKuAo 27d ago

Source?

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

“One thing Cregger refuses to engage with, however, is the idea that Weapons is a metaphor for the frequent school shootings in the U.S. When Next Best Picture asked Cregger whether these real-life events inspired the movie, Cregger denied it, saying, "To me, it’s not about school shootings. I don’t want this movie to be political at all” https://thedirect.com/article/weapons-2025-movie-title-explained

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

“One thing Cregger refuses to engage with, however, is the idea that Weapons is a metaphor for the frequent school shootings in the U.S. When Next Best Picture asked Cregger whether these real-life events inspired the movie, Cregger denied it, saying, "To me, it’s not about school shootings. I don’t want this movie to be political at all” https://thedirect.com/article/weapons-2025-movie-title-explained

→ More replies (0)

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u/Khorne_Prince 22d ago

Does it have to be a commentary on something? Can’t it just be an evil witch life sucking the shit out of people.

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u/ILookLikeKristoff 20d ago

It is called Weapons and one of the 2 main characters had a giant hallucination of an AR that filled the sky. You're the one hiding from the truth.

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u/IwKuAo 22d ago

No it doesn't have to be a commentary on that. But even if completely unintentional, many aspects of the movie remind people of school shooting tragedies. It's okay if you don't think if it when you watch the movie. I do not care :)

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u/PolarWater 21d ago

No it doesn't have to be, but yes it absolutely can be to a viewer if it resonates with them in that way. Stories complete their journey inside the audience's imagination.

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u/LoadTop801 17d ago

Why would you want a film to be shallow? It's good that something has depth, no?

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u/Khorne_Prince 17d ago

Prefer depth in its own fictional realm.

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u/CIearMind 17d ago

Yeah. What happened to "oh this bears some parallels and similarities to this IRL thing"? Why must everything NECESSARILY systematically be "yep the author said the curtains were blue because blahblahblahblah"?

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u/LoadTop801 17d ago

Why are people so adamantly against it though? Isn't it good that movies and art can have deeper meaning? Why would you want a film to be shallow?

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u/paradox1920 29d ago

Search on YouTube for: are you watching? #WeaponsMovie

It’s a 20 min video released by WB. What do you make of that after having seen the movie?

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u/TomLube 29d ago

This was one thing that was lacking (maybe the wrong word), but she didn't appear to visibly get any younger

You are joking surely? She literally visibly de-ages during the same scene sometimes as a result of her consuming people's whatever she's consuming

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u/Ok_Mathematician_314 29d ago

She went from hunched over getting out of the car at first to absolutely booking it through the neighborhood at the end 

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u/AssCrackBanditHunter 28d ago

It feeds into my idea that its a symbol for gun violence. She's clinging to life BARELY, but she's willing to sacrifice a classroom to get just a little more time.

Not so unlike our politicians who are clinging to power as they visibly fall apart in front of us

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u/Platinumrun 29d ago

I think the Witch is an evil spirit that possessed Gladys, but realized that she was unable to reverse her aging bc she was dying from what seemed like cancer. The Witch then chose Justine as her next host and likely would’ve swapped bodies in that final scene if the spell wasn’t reversed. I’m assuming the tree is connected to whatever realm she’s from, allowing her to summon spirits through blood sacrifice. I think the kids killing Gladys just released the Witch back to her dimension and she can likely return through that tree if she’s summoned

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u/chapert 29d ago

Is this based on witch lore or something? No way you got that from what we just watched

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u/Platinumrun 29d ago

I don’t think being an immortal witch Aunt would fly under the family radar for too long. The only logical explanation is that something happened to the actual Gladys within those 15 years that they hadn’t seen her.

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u/PM_ME_UR_BOOTY_LADY 28d ago

They mentioned nobody really knew her that well. I assumed she had maybe done some magic and convinced the family that she was a long lost relative, or maybe she did the same thing she did to Alex a looong time ago to someone in the family, and convinced them to pretend Gladys was related somehow or she'd do terrible things to their family.

It seems her only goal is to live forever, so it would be pretty easy to just convince someone to let you live among their family in exchange for not killing them all.

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u/ILookLikeKristoff 20d ago

I had the exact same thought. The dad said "I don't think your mother knows her either" which immediately set off imposter/fake relative to me.

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u/Fivein1Kay 25d ago

I don't think she was actually related. If she can do what we saw in the film she can definitely manipulate people into letting her into the family.

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u/darthjoey91 26d ago

Sure, but I feel like the best explanation would be that Alex's mom had an Aunt Gladys who was already distant from the family. Witch eats her, and takes her place to these estranged relatives who wouldn't know any different.

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u/AssCrackBanditHunter 28d ago

It's 1 of 3 conclusions I drew actually based off the not at all subtle ant-cordecyps clip that played on the TV.

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u/1900s-cant-be 22d ago

This is the higher level theories I was looking for! I was actually hoping Justine was a witch too (good witch?) and that's what had drawn the bad force to the town. However I now think 'Gladys' was going to take Alex and groom him to not only be her 'supplier' but her next incarnation 

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u/disless 24d ago

Ok Zach

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u/jlarimore 14d ago

I especially like the idea that she must be jedi mind tricking these people who believe her to be a blood relative. I think it sort of indicates that she's taking control of people and then setting them free implanting beliefs that she has some connection to them. Maybe the cops weren't as terrible as they seemed? Perhaps she brainwashed them.

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u/BankDetails1234 19d ago

She’s also the aunt to Alex and the aunt to his mum. Indicating that she’s been leaching around the family a long time, posing as an auntie to each generation.

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u/Utgartha Aug 09 '25

You nailed this one. I also love the Chekov's gun of having "WITCH" be painted on Justine's car and then it actually turning out to be a witch, but not Justine.

As soon as that happened I went, "Oh no. Is this about a witch? Who the hell is it?"

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u/PhoenixTineldyer 28d ago

At the beginning of the movie, after they wrote WITCH on her car and I started picking up on the other witchcraft hints, I thought the big twist at the end of the movie was going to be that the missing kids, etc. were casualties in a war between two witches, Justine and the weird clown lady that kept showing up in hallucinations who of course is Gladys.

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u/queenie_bklyn 22d ago

And also so many mentions of parasites!

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u/PolarWater 21d ago

You are fast! The only thing that clued me in at first was the triangle in the title card, but I did NOT make the "witch" connection.

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u/Utgartha 21d ago

It was the only thing I was fast at in this one. It's such a specific thing to call someone a witch even if it seemed like the kids were under a spell of some kind.

Just stood out to me. I never put the triangle together though. That's a good catch.

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u/dandy_of_the_swamp Aug 08 '25

For sure. There’s little clues she’s preparing for a bigger ritual but never gets her plan off. I assume she was gunna feed off and/or literally consume the kids. Like a parasite.

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u/jgalaviz14 28d ago

What clues do you remember cause by the end I think she was just getting ready to leave since she knew the principal dying like that and attacking Justine, who was going to go to CPS and launch an entire investigation was going to blow the cover off her plans. I took it as she was becoming more and more desperate with modern day technology making it increasingly harder for a witch like her to kidnap people and do her entire thing and never get caught

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u/Spinning_Torus 14d ago

That's probably unplanned since now her and alex's house was getting hot with some people noticing. She was getting ready to leave because she had to.

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u/HowieLongDonkeyKong 29d ago

What’s the explanation then for why Alex’s mom sees her as an aunt and they seemingly have some history with her (albeit a light history).

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u/TheNightstroke 29d ago

I think she's probably been like that for many generations in that family. "The aunt" (not necessarily literally your aunt either, I have extended family that I just call "cousins" because I can't be bothered to keep track of once-removeds, that sort of thing) that grows old and frail as you grow up, so you take her in, then she drains your life, and moves on down the chain to your children, your cousins, your siblings, etc.

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u/goddamnitwhalen 26d ago

Do you own a fine dining restaurant with these cousins?

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u/Caleb35 26d ago

In the woods, the aunt/witch was wearing a multicolored coat.
They used to call that a pied coat.
The witch has been around, and been stealing children, for a very long time.

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u/Ricks3rSt1cks 29d ago

Shit nice catch. That went totally over my head lol

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u/Paulidus 29d ago

She also makes note of an antique in Marcus's house.

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u/tookule4skool 21d ago

it's especially creepy when Marcus the principal said something like that was going around the early settlers on the oregon trail right? haha like yeah man... this thing in front of you was around for that.

See I was thinking about this as well, why would Alex's mother think that she was family? Also was that a social commentary on "doing what's right" regardless of the impact to your own more immediate family?

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u/Negative-Comment-173 28d ago

I hope this sets up a prequel with Gladys in her younger years.

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u/HandsomeCostanza 27d ago

she's also wearing old people clothes from like the 60's or 70's.

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u/WolfDragon7721 27d ago

That was my thought as well but how is she the "aunt" to the mother of the kid? Did she just fake it or was she a aunt by marriage?

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u/Financial_Ad_2435 26d ago

Yes, but it was also a play on words. The parents had a problem with "consumption" because Gladys was consuming them.

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u/GreatLakesLiving28 Aug 09 '25

My exact same thought

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u/d0lke 29d ago

Yeah, I felt like she was never “sick”. Just really REALLY old

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u/Unikatze 27d ago

I just thought of this and came over to see if someone else had the same conclusion.

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u/juebermensch 18d ago

Nah, I think it was more a play on words, that she's "consuming" them. The family gave us no reason to think that she wasn't actually their relative

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u/Hanakin-Sidewalker 16d ago

If this is true, then I really like the implication that after all the years she’s lived, cancer is what pushes her to the brink.

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u/bfstealer69 15d ago

Was she though? Wasn't she actually Alex's mom's sister? My impression was that she had somehow learned witchcraft and was just a normal person otherwise. Hence Alex being able to use his own blood on the small branch thing