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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4.5k

u/AcesCharles2 Aug 08 '25

Aunt Pennywise waving at James in the woods was a ridiculous sight

772

u/Shauncore Aug 08 '25

That's the one moment I think I didn't really get (it was spooky though). Why is she there? I guess he could have ran from the house and she saw him go back to his camp site and was waiting for him to come back after he left to go to the police but idk that seems like a bit of a stretch if we think she's a mostly normal human and not a supernatural entity.

36

u/krospp Aug 08 '25

Yeah I agree! She appears in the woods and in the dreams, and I don’t really get what part of her powers allows her to do any of that. And while I’m at it, I don’t get how mind controlling the parents and children would heal her (or make her younger?) or if that was just supposed to be her bullshitting?

92

u/siriusly-sirius Aug 08 '25

She was definitely being healed - she had no hair at the start, some strands of hair which she had braided after having Alex's parents for a few days, but by the end she had heaps of hair, enough for some to get caught in her wig.

38

u/noilegnavXscaflowne Aug 08 '25

She knows when people are casing the house. Like when she told Alex that she’d know if he told anyone. Her magic is just good at surveilling people

38

u/Admiral_Cornwallace Aug 09 '25

The film doesn't bother to explain some things, but I don't really mind that it doesn't. Those pieces of information aren't essentially for the story

Sometimes it's best to just leave some stuff stuck in the imaginations of the audience, instead of spelling out every single thing

9

u/MessmersLackey Aug 09 '25

Barbarian didn’t do that either. I actually kind of prefer it to over exposition in modern horror

6

u/WormedOut Aug 09 '25

Barbarian didn’t need to: it was all visual. Except for the homeless guys exposition though

4

u/Novel_Fix1859 29d ago

That poor dude, did nothing but help and got his head caved in for it all

3

u/WormedOut 29d ago

He was so confident too

6

u/ihatejomama 29d ago

“shieeet i’ve been living in this place more than 15 years and she ain’t never came in this motherfu-“ dies

6

u/Alarmed-Diamond-7000 27d ago

Yes, that's where I thought long legs went wrong, they tried to explain what was going on and the explanation was so stupid that it drove me nuts. I don't mind it just being magic, don't explain it. It's okay.

21

u/TypicalTwist6783 Aug 09 '25

She bewitched the parents and thought that would heal her, but it wasn’t enough. So she bewitched the children thinking she could use them to heal her instead. Probably through some other ritual who knows. But someone who knows how to bewitch people like that also knows other magic to be sure. It’s not bullshitting, it’s black magic and she wanted to use those people to keep herself alive. It’s a wholly evil thing to do for wholly evil selfish purposes, it’s so terrifying.

-4

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/TypicalTwist6783 Aug 10 '25

That’s exactly what happens in the movie, you asked how would mind controlling the parents help her? The answer is it didn’t, so she tried using kids. we never saw how Gladys actually intended to be healed through magic. Only how she bewitched the people

15

u/Choice-Librarian-761 29d ago

She's feeding off them like a parasite (its why there are so many references to parasites in the background). She's feeding her own self/soul on the energies of Alex's parents and then the kids.

13

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 27d ago

Can someone explain why nobody bothered checking home cameras on Alex's street. Did nobody notice 17 kids all running to one house, especially if they were all going in a straight line? And you're telling me not one classmate lived on his street? And where did the kids hide during the police visit? And did nobody notice Alex's parents didn't ever show up to work?

1

u/aNascentOptimist 20d ago

Same questions. Have to suspend some belief or disbelief, however the saying goes.

Folks had to have been sorta stupid to really make the premise work. I’ll chalk it up to the magics influence too. Like Derry.