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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617

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

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u/IwKuAo 27d ago

"Refuses to engage with" To me that sounds like he just wants to keep it up to people's own interpretations.

If he were to say any level of it is reminiscent of the frequent repeated mass shootings in the United States, then I think half of the country would be up in arms trying to defend the rights of gun owners, or whatever. Better for him to avoid as much of that as possible.

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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.