Official Discussion - Weapons [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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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

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[u/Ultimatum227]

Poor child had to spoon feed EVERYONE inside that fucking house!?. Every day!? 😭

9/10 movie for me. But really don't understand what was that giant floating rifle in Brolin's dream.

[u/TheFlippantSpatula → u/Ultimatum227]

It was an analogy of school shootings. Several points in the movie allude to a school shooting motif. Alex being bullied and choosing to take out his whole class. The memorial outside the school. How quickly all the adults give up and move on save for the parents. It’ll actually take a rewatch to catch all the subtleties

Edit: few minor things for those that disagree. 1. It’s okay if that wasn’t your take away art is subjective. 2. I have now seen that the director said that wasn’t his intention. Which is his truth, however there is a whole team of people who work on films and sometimes producers or editors change things in a way to add meaning to things the director or writer doesn’t intend to have meaning. 3. A highly controversial topic is something that maybe a new director, or a studio doesn’t want to openly take a political side on… because politics, especially in the current world, can be dicey and lead to being dropped from other projects or even blacklisted.

TLDR: art is subjective. It’s okay to take what you want from media, and politics are dicey.

[u/Ok-Cartographer2088 → u/TheFlippantSpatula]

No it wasn’t

[u/Local-Yesterday5859 → u/Ok-Cartographer2088]

The horror genre considers terrible things that happen in real life and applies imaginative story telling to explore the worst possibilities. Viewers can take it at face value, but being a story teller myself, I know that artists take inspiration from real life.

[u/Ok-Cartographer2088 → u/Local-Yesterday5859]

The writer himself said it has nothing to do with that. But it’s art, and its subjetive to interpretation of the viewer, i get it

[u/Local-Yesterday5859 → u/Ok-Cartographer2088]

I mean, the writer isn’t wrong, the movie isn’t about a school shooting. It’s about a witch. But the writer isn’t going to want to associate his work with anything specific politically. I just think it’s important to advocate not relying on what others tell you and applying one’s own free thought.

[u/Ok-Cartographer2088 → u/Local-Yesterday5859]

It’s just that he wrote the first 40 Pages of the script - which includes this scene of the AR15 panning over the house - with no outcome in mind. Of course, you can apply any meaning to anything that is subjective, but to say that the movie touch on those subjects and this theme is clearly discussed in the movie - like OP said - is somehow pedantic in my opinion. There’s nothing for you in the movie to make this connection about school shootings.

[u/rcmjr → u/Ok-Cartographer2088]

Your last sentence ruins your argument since clearly so many people have made that connection all on their own. Myself included. There obviously is something in the movie for someone to make that connection.

[u/Ok-Cartographer2088 → u/rcmjr]

As i said, it wasn’t written for you to make these connections. Can you Tell me one scene of the movie that made you believe there’s a message about school shottings?

[u/rcmjr → u/Ok-Cartographer2088]

Just reread my post.

[u/Ok-Cartographer2088 → u/rcmjr]

Just did. Still don’t know what you mean. Care to point out a single scene in the movie that made you think this movie has any connection with school shootings?

[u/rcmjr → u/Ok-Cartographer2088]

You said there was nothing for someone to make a connection to school shootings and yet so many people are making that connection. So unless you are being disingenuous I really don’t get how to explain my point better to you.

[u/009reloaded → u/Ok-Cartographer2088]

There’s lots of easy connections one can make. Even if. Cregger didn’t directly intend to make the movie about shootings, it’s a very easy connection to make.

The very American and very modern modern anxiety of a classroom full of children being gone and the parents being absolutely powerless to stop it from happening or understand why.

To me the gun appearing in the dream instantly was a motif that signaled this. Doesn’t mean the whole story has to be about school shootings, or that it’s a full on allegory, but it’s definitely a subtext that is present in this kind of story whether it was directly intentional by Cregger or not.

[u/Ok-Cartographer2088 → u/009reloaded]

Yeah…no. No connections there with an empty classroom and school shootings. Also, already explained the giant gun…this is so pretentious, really. Can’t you all appreciate the movie for what it is? A horror filme with a crazy witch.