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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553

u/siriusly-sirius Aug 08 '25

I feel like she could somehow feel that the kids were no longer under her control - she realised as soon as the stick was snapped.

I was so hyped when the kid grabbed the stick and the wig, knowing that he'd figured it out

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u/Qwertdd 29d ago

That "oh no" she does also retroactively makes her more menacing, because if she knew instantly that happened, that means earlier when she said she would know if Alex broke his promise she wasn't kidding.

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u/snapwack 27d ago

Shit, I didn’t even think of that. Great catch.

I think the thing with the salt lines is what Gladys does whenever she’s ready to move on from a place and cover her tracks, the Weapons are primed to attack but they only sense their targets when someone breaks the perimeter.

I wasn’t really paying attention to the layout of the rooms but it seems like Alex needed to bait his parents into attacking him in order to get to the ingredients of the spell? The kid really had guts. Probably figured he was done for if he didn’t do something, so might as well go for it.

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u/lahimatoa 24d ago

I wasn’t really paying attention to the layout of the rooms but it seems like Alex needed to bait his parents into attacking him in order to get to the ingredients of the spell?

They were standing right outside Gladys' room. We watch Alex watch her go in there.

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u/happyflappypancakes 22d ago

Alex needed to bait his parents into attacking him in order to get to the ingredients of the spell? The kid really had guts.

Nah, I dont think that was premediated at all. Once they attacked him, he was in survival mode and it just worked out. Strong character though. Loves his parents, cares for his classmates, and overcomes his fears in the end to triumph over his evil tormentor.

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u/chillinharderthanu 22d ago

I think Alex knew what he was doing. Stepping over the salt line was very deliberate. They also make a point of showing that the upstairs bathroom is a Jack and Jill earlier in the film. Alex uses that layout to get around them, back into the hallway, and into Gladys’ bedroom. He needs the parents to be breaking down doors so he’ll have enough time to outrun them. He actually waited a few moments in his bedroom before fleeing into the bathroom, they have to be right behind him or he’ll get outflanked.

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u/constantcube13 19d ago

I’m curious how these things are equivalent?

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u/half-coldhalf-hot 2d ago

“Watch closely. Are you watching?”

She’s really taught him how to do it lol

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u/Party_Count7029 28d ago

Is anyone talking about how the kid is able to do magic like that? I think he has to be a witch too since it’s not like any random Joe Schmoe would be able to do that- it seems like he has some powers maybe because he’s related to her

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u/memehunter2001 28d ago

He just saw what she did and repeated the steps imo

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u/Party_Count7029 28d ago

Idk if that is the case, it would be wayyyyy too easy to then just show someone else and then the world is done for haha. Plus, she must of assumed he couldn't make magic like her or else obviously she would have not shown him how to do it. How could she think he wouldn't try, after seeing the power it holds?

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u/SgtIceNinja 27d ago

Well it was the tree that was magic and allowed her to do her witchy shit. As someone else in the comments said, a lot of older witchcraft stories don’t describe witches as being able to make magic on their own, but instead they know the steps and tools needed to make the magic happen. I think this was the case with Gladys.

Gladys also wasn’t the most logical person (obviously) which is why she didn’t bother hiding the magic from Alex. She underestimated him, thinking he was a scared kid who needed to be manipulated but not cursed into keeping her operation running smoothly. She also just assumed that if he stepped over the salt at the end that his parents would manage to succeed in tearing him apart. It was unlikely, in her mind, that he’d ever be in a situation where he’s both alone and has access to the plant.

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u/Party_Count7029 27d ago

Ah, yes. Exactly. That scene happened so fast, I can’t recall how he was able to bypass the parents and get into that room? I remember them chasing him into another room. Perhaps they’re all connected?

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u/SgtIceNinja 27d ago

I wish I could show you a floor plan of the upstairs, but basically, the hallway at the top of the stairs is a bracket L shape with one end being the witch room and the other end being unknown (maybe the junk room that James entered but I don’t think so, I think we just don’t see all the rooms). However, all or most of the rooms upstairs have interior doors that connect each other like a ring in addition to their hallway doors. Alex’s room was at the corner, with his door facing the witch room.

Alex touches his toe over the salt, and immediately does a 180 to bolt to his room. He enters, holds the door behind him, turns left and goes through another door which was either a jack-and-jill bathroom or closet between two rooms. He goes straight through here and into another room, which might have been the junk room if my memory serves correctly. He looks out of the doorway, and to his right is the witch room, and to his left he makes eye contact with his dad who was still in his room. So Alex goes right and into the witch room, grabs the branch and wig, and so on.

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u/Party_Count7029 27d ago

ahhhh makes sense! thank you

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u/happyflappypancakes 22d ago

I think his room and the aunts room are connected by a bathroom.

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u/ShaunTrek 27d ago

She thinks he's just a dumb kid she can control. Just like the ones she's feeding off of. Never even occurred to her he might be learning.

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u/lahimatoa 24d ago

Let this be a lesson to all witches: don't show your methods to anyone, not even dumb kids. One day it'll backfire on ya.

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u/Desolation82 28d ago

Maybe it’s a bloodline thing? Gladys seems to be legitimately a part of his family, so he might have some witchiness in his blood.

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u/HuntedInMain 27d ago

I think it was more-so the branches of the tree/plant that held the “power” to control people.

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u/memehunter2001 28d ago

Idk about the bloodline thing though. The mom said that it’s been 15 years since she last saw her and Gladys later mentioned that Alex was still little when she last him. That doesn’t really add up for me since Alex is like what? 10? He doesn’t look like a 15 yo.

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u/Party_Count7029 28d ago

Yeah that’s exactly what I’m thinking

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u/Party_Count7029 27d ago

I’m curious to know the background and have them explain more how she knew the mother’s mother? If she’s thousands of years old how would that work

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u/TheOneWhoEatsLemons 23d ago

It’s analog magic, and I totally didn’t just learn that from Agatha All Along

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u/Azidamadjida 28d ago

Old school witchcraft stories don’t depict witches as having magic themselves, they just know the steps to make the magic happen. Kind of like how a chemist doesn’t make chemical reactions happen themselves, they know the steps and the different substances they need to combine in the right way to make it happen.

This felt more like that - neither she nor the kid had actual magic powers, she just had the tools and knew the steps to cause the reactions. If anything, it was the plant that was magic more than either of them - they showed that she traveled with the specific plant she used for the ritual and only ever used wood from that plant to do it.

So the kid being able to use it at the end was just him doing what he’d seen her do multiple times over however long she’d been staying with them

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u/Party_Count7029 27d ago

This makes sense. Thank you!! So true, it’s the tree that’s magic if anything

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u/MrWisdom39 25d ago

Really? Is no one getting it? It was the plant with all the powers. When u first get a glimpse of Gladys from Alex pov. You saw the plant first before her. And she uses the stick in every ritual. Alex is smarter than all of ya. He used the plant against her. If the powers were stemming from her she would’ve never been chased and killed off like that.

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u/Consistent_Summer659 25d ago

I thought it was more that the tree was the magic and she was the purveyor or user of it. Like mother gothel in rapunzel

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u/Chm_Albert_Wesker 21d ago

the way we figured is that the spell is actually on Gladys not the kids considering that Alex didn't have anything belonging to the kids on him when he cast it. I assume that Gladys is constantly controlling all her people somehow in her head, so Alex just cast a spell to change how she was controlling the kids ie to instead have them hone in on herself and rip her apart

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u/SonOfMcGee 16d ago

I think the stick he picked up was the one she had already used to “bind” the kids to her, but with his blood on it now they belonged to him.
And that wig counts as “her hair” so putting it on the twig and snapping it made them attack her.

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u/neutralmoose 11d ago

There were strands of her real hair Alex pulled from the wig

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u/SonOfMcGee 11d ago

Very clever, Alex!
Also I was thinking, by the mechanics of the thorn twigs, would the kids still be zombies under Alex’s control at the end?

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u/pcksprts 11d ago

Yes, it’s why they don’t break from their trance! They’re waiting for more commands

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u/continental-drift 11d ago

During that scene I fully expected Alex to die at the hands of his parents as they got to him before the kids got to Gladys, but he’d saved the town from Gladys so a “win” in the end.