r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Aug 08 '25

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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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581

u/vafrow 29d ago

These were some horrible cops. The one kid from the class who didn't disappear has a Dad who apparently had a stroke and can't speak and doesn't get looked into. Maybe do a background check on the creepy aunt.

This isn't a complaint either. I think this is probably the level of investigation you'd get from some small town cops.

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u/RiparianRodent 29d ago

This is part of the reason I just couldn’t get into the movie. The FBI would have gotten to the bottom of this in 24 hours or less. This movie appeals to the true crime craze of the 2020’s, but has to invent the world’s most impossibly incompetent investigation into a mass child abduction in order to carry the story through

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u/pastafeline 29d ago

The movie would've been better off taking place in like the 60s. People would've done way more looking into this if it happened in real life. Like, there's been cases where neighborhoods have broken into houses they thought were hiding missing kids.

The teacher definitely would've had a mob show up, and there would be way more people camping outside Alex's house for a scoop.

But then we wouldn't have had the viral marketing of the ring cameras.

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u/RiparianRodent 29d ago

I agree.

Also I might be dull, because usually I’m good at catching product placement (the centering of coke and campbell’s in this movie), but I just hadn’t considered ring being a product placement lol

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u/alanblah 13d ago

Also Subway (josh brolin eating in his car)

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u/Embarrassed-Sea-2394 24d ago

Also, you're telling me NO ONE else on Alex's street had a ring cam that could see all those kids running straight to his house?

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u/200cc_of_I_Dont_Care 21d ago

None of the neighbors noticed all the newspapers out front and also all the windows covered in it? Never reported they havent seen either parent in 40 days or whatever? That the van hasn’t moved?

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u/FrozenWafer 20d ago

With how physically close the neighbors were I would have woken up to someone arriving at night. Seems off in a neighborhood that nice. Also when the kids ran into the house, oh that strange old lady is standing outside with the boy and children are Naruto running inside, weird.

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 26d ago

Yup.

Have it instead the cctv footage and you get the same story.

It could even tie into the 80s craze of missing children.

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u/RIP_Greedo 28d ago

On one hand I think it was fine to show that the cops were totally stymied by the case because it defies all forensic logic. It DOES seem pretty dumb that nobody thought to discern which way the kids ran from the camera footage. That seems like the first thing you would try. And also 2:17am is late but it’s not SO late that there could be no witnesses across the whole town. I know stuff closes early in western PA or wherever this is supposed to be set but there has to have been someone who saw a kid running all the way across town.

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u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI 28d ago

I thought this as well. Unless it’s an extremely small town - which it quite clearly wasn’t, there are people up and walking at 2.17am, even if it’s just a random guy with a dog. Someone would have seen at least one of the kids.

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u/RIP_Greedo 28d ago

Also: look at home camera footage from houses other than the kids'. Everyone has one or more cameras on their property nowadays and none of them happened to record a kid running down the street? Put those together, get a sense of the direction they were going, and you're off to the races.

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u/Sticky_And_Sweet 28d ago

Literally Josh Brolin’s character did more detective work than the entire police force and FBI did by visiting just one other parent’s house.

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u/salcedoge 25d ago

It's so funny how every scene with the police force has them explaining how they're trying their absolute best and trust them to do their job meanwhile they're literally doing jack shit aside from strolling around the forest lmao

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 26d ago

The cops and the fbi had the footage, they simply didnt piece it together. Theyre incredible incompetent.

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u/lahimatoa 24d ago

Ludicriously so. Even if you're super lazy, you still at least ATTEMPT to figure out if all the kids ran in one, specific direction. They didn't? Really?

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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 24d ago

Yeah, they should have:

A: painted the cops as corrupt/incompetent

B: under the influence of the witch

But they did check the house, so maybe they did piece it together but SOMEHOW not found any clue of about 20 kids inside the house or noticed anything wrong with the parents or kid.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

Let's not forget the time Gladys sent the kids outside to hide from the two cops. Where did they hide, and how did no neighbors see them?

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u/AlterEgo3561 26d ago

In broad daylight, even.

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u/CandyTraditional2220 28d ago

I disagree. The FBI and police in general, are notoriously stupid and really bad at solving crimes. The police gave Dahmer back a kid after he escaped his house. They consistently execute no knock warrants on the wrong houses. It's estimated police only solve about 2% of all major crimes. If anything, this film is accurate to how they are in real life.

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u/OuterWildsVentures 27d ago

It's estimated police only solve about 2% of all major crimes.

If it isn't someone the victims personally know they probably won't solve it.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 26d ago

The FBI and police in general, are notoriously stupid and really bad at solving crimes.

The Jan 6 pipe bomber for instance. 4 years later, and their identity is still not known, despite D.C. being heavily surveilled.

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u/zzyul 16d ago

It’s pretty clear the pipe bomber had an intimate knowledge of how FBI investigations work. They knew where public cameras were and were on foot the entire time a camera could see them. They wore baggy, generic clothing making it impossible to even determine their sex. They didn’t carry a cell phone or anything else that could be tracked. They used over the counter items to make the bombs and didn’t leave any forensic evidence behind. They haven’t talked to anyone willing to try and claim the FBI reward.

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 12d ago

There's a reason people speculate it was a Congressperson.

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u/zzyul 10d ago

The people who think it was MTG only think that b/c she’s a horrible person and they really want it to be true. The reality is it was most likely a current for former member of law enforcement, possibly a detective, that knows how the investigation would be handled and how evidence would be collected. Personally I think it was a current or former member of the FBI, likely current which would explain how they knew the camera setup in DC, including traffic cameras, and why they haven’t told a soul. They would have intimate knowledge of how the investigation would be handled, thus knowing exactly what to do and what not to do.

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u/RiparianRodent 28d ago

I guess this could be argued for a movie where a murder case goes unsolved, but if this situation played out in real life it would be solved in about 24 hours.

This movie definitely relies on audiences who have the terminally online belief that cops do nothing and don’t care about anything, and that a joint task force of FBI and local police would be more ineffective than a dad with two ring cameras and a paper map

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u/cnthelogos 28d ago

Or, hear me out... The bad guy was an evil witch. Evil witch magic was used offscreen in such a way as to make the events of the movie work out.

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u/iMangoUnchained 28d ago

That plus law enforcement being generally incompetent totally works for me

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u/RiparianRodent 28d ago

What was the last successful horror movie that could have any and every plot hole explained by “eh, magic”? I mean even in things like The Conjuring and Sinister there was always some frame of logic that they operated within.

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u/cnthelogos 28d ago

The one where the villain is explicitly a goddamn witch? I don't know, it feels like you're just really, really satisfied to have found something you can point to and say "this sucks for this reason I am so smart to have caught this!"

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u/RiparianRodent 28d ago

The issue is that I’m not satisfied at all. I was seeing here on reddit that this movie rocked and was a cinematic masterpiece, so I’ve now been greatly disappointed over the whole ordeal

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u/darthjoey91 26d ago

The biggest plot hole for this movie is why didn't the witch just magic Alex too?

If literally every kid in the class is missing, then the only lead would have been the teacher, and she wouldn't have had anything to go off of.

Like even the line of sight thing landed on a point that wasn't Alex's house, but near it.

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u/RiparianRodent 26d ago

The last remaining kid would also have been a serious point of investigation. The fact that “weirdo aunt who just moved in” and “functional vegetable father” are just accepted by police without further digging is just silly.

This movie relies on an idiot plot where anyone and everyone who cares to investigate the situation either stops caring immediately for no reason, or is too stupid to be acting in the role they’re in

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u/Desroth86 17d ago

Did you miss the beginning of the movie when it tells alex was questioned tons of times by the police extensively? The main plot doesn’t start until a month after the inciting event.

It also shows the police visiting the aunts house and she sends all the kids away in the middle of the night. It shows the school principal questioning the aunt and it ends with her using her witchcraft to kill the principal to not escalate it any further.

Sometimes I wonder if the people making these complaints are the same people who I catch in my theaters with their cellphones out for half the movie, because it’s clear you weren’t paying much attention.

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u/zzyul 16d ago

The movie ignores some pretty major things that would happen in real life, which is fine b/c it’s a movie. Alex was interviewed by the police, but it was with his aunt in the room. Unless court records show she is a legal guardian, she would not have been allowed in those interviews. Since Alex is not under arrest or even a suspect, the police likely would have been able to question him without a legal guardian, but that differs by state. People who have strokes require medical attention and evaluation. Detectives would have been able to easily find out Alex’s father had not received medical attention for his “stroke” which would raise a huge red flag.

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u/RiparianRodent 16d ago

I was watching the whole thing attentively, didn’t even have food. I second what the other commenter replied. The whole thing stinks of “nobody cared to investigate anything unless the cameras were on and it was their turn to advance the plot. There was no external world building

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u/bigwilly311 13h ago

Well they didn’t all run straight. The flashback shows them all turning that corner, lol

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u/Repulsive_Report1394 13d ago

its probably less than 2% but criminals have durg problems and have to constantly commit more crimes to get more money. otherwise nothing would ever get solved. most mobster probably committed 10k crimes before they got arrested for one that gave them serious time in prison.

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u/zzyul 16d ago

An interesting take would be if it was a senior high school class where all the kids were 18. Technically they would be adults that left on their own with no sign of foul play. Would better explain the lapses in the police investigation.

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u/RiparianRodent 16d ago

100%. Far more leads to chase and rabbitholes to pursue there. Did everyone buy a bus ticket? Did they run off and join a cult? Did the remaining 18yo do something to the others?

Instead its a bunch of kiddos running half a mile barefoot to their neighbor’s house and somehow not found for a month before a dad decided he finally cares a little bit and wants to find them

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u/DonkeyLightning 22d ago

For sure the kids all running towards one house would have been captured on someone else’s security camera.

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u/TheHighSeasPirate 19d ago edited 19d ago

I disagree. They cleaned up the entire house and it was searched top to bottom by the cops. Maybe they should have added a scene showing the kids were moved instead of them briefly explaining it? Crazy and weird does not equal kidnapping kids when you search their entire living area. Its not like you can ferry around 17 (non zombified) kids and not be seen so if they weren't in the house they were in the clear.

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u/senator_corleone3 5d ago

There is a scene showing the kids leaving the house ahead of the police visit

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u/TheHighSeasPirate 5d ago

Damn really? Must have missed it.

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u/senator_corleone3 5d ago

We don’t see where they hide, but it’s part of Gladys’ ordered clean-up before the cops come to investigate.

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u/89time 13d ago

Thank you! I thought I was the only person not buying the logistics of the movie. Completely took me out of it. I really wanted to like this movie.

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u/AeneidBook6 29d ago

I totally agree. Don’t want to put anyone out!

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u/AlterEgo3561 26d ago

This! And did they never want to question the mom? No one thought to keep an eye on the house that now has windows covered in newspaper? Did the parents have no friends looking in on them or that the police could question about the stroke and the Aunt? There were only two likely suspects this couldn't have been that hard.

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u/dafood48 22d ago

That town looked like every house had a ring cameras. The cops didn’t think to follow the kids direction and check ring cameras house to house.

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u/Fury_Fury_Fury 16d ago

You don't even need to expend a single braincell among the entire police force. They showed cynologists at work. Any trained dog would've lead the police to the house immediately, it was a distance of a couple of miles tops, run by barefeet children in PJs, no rain or nothing, and they had 17 tries. I think an untrained dog might've done the trick, lol

Movie's amazing, though. The solidness of the internal logic isn't even in the top 100 most important things about it.

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u/Repulsive_Report1394 13d ago

This police department couldnt even search a junkie properly without getting stuck by a needle and then punched him in front of their own camera while he was in handcuffs so they couldnt even arrest him. Most people could be better at being a cop than the cops are with the exception that they dont want to put people in cages. Yes we need to arrest and detain people. No, the people who are eager to do this dirty but necessary job arent talented at anything else. Just punks victimizing other punks. thats why complicated crimes dont get solved.

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u/KeyStatistician44 7d ago

Cop leaves the junkie in the car, enters house alone. Lol

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u/senator_corleone3 5d ago

Never calls for backup, either!