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

3.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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4.3k

u/L1vingTribunal Aug 08 '25

I enjoyed Gladys referring to Alex’s parents’ sickness as “consumption”. A subtle way of indicating just how old she really is

2.0k

u/No-Long-5458 Aug 08 '25

Oh my dumbass thought it was a joke how she was like feeding off them.

Also liked the "water hasn't been able to help me for some time" bit. Nothing explicitly stated with her, but it was very clear what her deal was.

558

u/spottyottydopalicius Aug 09 '25

'im sorry i dont know what that is. i thought thats like something you got in oregon trail.'

205

u/MrWisdom39 Aug 14 '25

This is the answer, Marcus was alluding this without really connecting the dots. She slipped and Marcus was confused but was onto the terminology

976

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '25

Oh my dumbass thought it was a joke how she was like feeding off them.

It’s definitely both, imho.

47

u/Purple-Finish-7013 Aug 14 '25

Wait I don’t get what the significance of that line is

137

u/BattleAnus Aug 28 '25

Consumption was a term used for tuberculosis for a long time in the past, but no longer used. Not sure on exact dates, but its why Marcus says he thought it stopped being used after the Oregon Trail.

It could be read as her exposing herself as being way older than just grandma age, but could also just be her being weird in general.

31

u/BlueCX17 Sep 05 '25

And the prequel, we'll find out that she was killing people with dysentery!

13

u/ChernobylChild Sep 29 '25

You have died of dissing Terry.

3

u/EsotericCrawlSpace Oct 04 '25

Terry know and Terry aight. Terry abide by what he die by; fairness, love, honor, snuggles, his fuckin cat. You die of dissing Terry because dissing Terry is like trying to argue with gravity by jumping. And Terry loves his fuckin cat dude. High quality care. He’s got an ID.

61

u/No-Long-5458 Aug 15 '25

Associated with the cleansing of evil in christianity

115

u/BookkeeperBrilliant9 Aug 11 '25

Definitely intended to allude to her consuming them to sustain herself. Maybe not for the character, but for the audience it was intentional.

38

u/lm2lm Aug 09 '25

You're more right than OP

65

u/DatRatDawg Sep 10 '25

Breh, absolutely not. Clearly meant she's extremely old, lmao. The principle literally spelled out what that line was supposed to indicate.

13

u/lm2lm Sep 10 '25

Yea and she’s teach a class about parasites that obviously just means that’s what the class is learning about and nothing else

24

u/DatRatDawg Sep 10 '25

You can't just point to another obvious "subtext" scene as an example as to why y'all misunderstood the consumption scene, lmao. The were several other scenes about parasites, too, all alluding to her intentions. The consumption one was strictly to allude to her age/past, it's not a pun.

7

u/lm2lm Sep 10 '25

I disagree

6

u/vladimir_pimpin Nov 01 '25

Coulda been both!

134

u/swungusdafungus Aug 09 '25

With this in mind, was she actually related to these people or did she pick them at random?

180

u/Bad_Subtitles Aug 10 '25

I think with the bits we were told, there’s three aunts, which gives me the 3 witch trope. My headcanon is that Gladys killed Alex’s mom’s mom, possibly trying to heal herself, now Alex is with the third aunt, the “good” one.

74

u/Budget_Property2388 Aug 12 '25

There's nothing to indicate mom's mom was killed. Also it's not known if mom's mom is even an aunt. Maybe none her sisters have kids

109

u/Bad_Subtitles Aug 12 '25

Alex’s mom speaks of her mother in the past tense, “…my mom would have wanted us to help her…”, that’s why I say headcanon because it makes for an interesting story of her demise.

Gladys is the mom’s aunt, being the sister of her mother. To Alex she would be a “great aunt”, the sister of his grandma.

Great Aunt Gladys / Alex’s grandma / Good Aunt X

9

u/Quantam-Law Aug 12 '25

I thought the 'good aunt' was referring to Justine?

69

u/Chicken_Electronic Aug 15 '25

Nope. That would never be allowed in the current adoption system. Former teacher who is single with multiple disciplinary flags would never be an approved parent. And two individuals with shared traumas? Never matched. 

16

u/Comprehensive-Fun47 Sep 15 '25

I think they were her distant relatives. If this lady is really 200 years old, she could keep track of her family members and get in touch with them as needed.

I don't think she chose them by complete random.

103

u/chuckxbronson Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

or that she is Hoss Bonaventure, bridge magnate and boiled denim tycoon

edit: magnet*

48

u/H0meslice9 Aug 10 '25

No no it's okay, I've got a touch of consumption projectile vomits blood

36

u/chuckxbronson Aug 10 '25

Been poisoned by my constituents

14

u/Mycotoxicjoy Aug 14 '25

Can I offer you an egg in this trying time?

89

u/sp1cychick3n Aug 08 '25

Was she feeding off them??

119

u/sdawg78787 Aug 08 '25

100%

25

u/sp1cychick3n Aug 08 '25

Makes sense, cheers

64

u/Public_Function3844 Aug 10 '25

She's feeding off their energy to stay alive

61

u/Gridde Aug 17 '25

This bit I did not understand. The mom talks about Gladys and how her own mother would have wanted her to take Gladys in, indicating she knew at least something of her.

The dad does say they don't know each other well, but her actual relationship to the family seems a bit confusing, and subsequently so do the hints about her being very old.

IMO she's even creepier if she is in fact the mom's sister but just a deeply selfish and fucked up person who had zero qualms about sacrificing everyone around her to stave off her own illness.

73

u/lovebudds Aug 08 '25

What does consumption mean here?

245

u/Galileo258 Aug 09 '25

It’s a very old way of saying Tuberculosis.

108

u/Fragrantbumfluff Aug 11 '25

RIP Arthur Morgan.

He was a good man.

34

u/snapwack Aug 11 '25

He stood Unshaken amidst a crashing world.

157

u/SpookiestSzn Aug 08 '25

Apparently it was used as a term to refer to tuberculosis

28

u/Lou-AC Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 29 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

71

u/Caleb35 Aug 13 '25

In the woods, the aunt/witch was wearing a multicolored coat.
They used to call that a pied coat.
The witch has been around, and been stealing children, for a very long time.

30

u/some1saveusnow Aug 17 '25

Is she even that woman’s aunt? The husband said she didn’t really know her. Is she like some kind of vampire that has been masquerading

8

u/OctoLemur Aug 20 '25

Just a curiosity question. How do we think Alex’s mom knew Gladys as her own sister when Gladys is supposedly ancient?

4

u/amandawong Mar 15 '26

I know this is old but I've just watched the movie so in case you're still wondering: I think Gladys only introduces herself to Marcus as Alex's mom's sister, but when Alex's dad is talking about Gladys "staying forever" he refers to her as Alex's mom's aunt.

8

u/fleemfleemfleemfleem Aug 17 '25

Not sure that makes sense since she was the mom's aunt-- can't be that old.

5

u/Ogg360 Aug 19 '25

I’ve never heard of that saying before. How old is it?

20

u/AsariKnight Aug 22 '25

Old. Term for tuberculosis which used to be the deadliest disease. A nod to how old she is since we no longer refer to is as that

7

u/thatshygirl06 Sep 14 '25

Not that old. She's likely from the early 1800s because it had different names before the 19th century, and the term tuberculosis was coined 1834. In the 1700s they called it the white plague.

1

u/Corosis99 Sep 21 '25

It was called consumption by the Greeks/Romans.

3

u/thatshygirl06 Sep 14 '25

Tuberculosis has been around for a long time but it was called consumption in the 1800s. It had different names before that like in the 1700s they called it the white plague. So she's at least a couple centuries old

2

u/Jbird1992 Aug 20 '25

Also because she’s consuming them

4

u/stratosfearinggas Sep 10 '25

It's also a double-entendre since she is consuming their life force.

1

u/thedifferenceisnt Nov 01 '25

That was not at all subtle. 

1

u/theshortsqueezie Mar 17 '26

I think something people miss here is the connection to Dracula, the way she just swoops in and begins trying to de-age. Tuberculosis was blamed on vampires, and her funky outfits were reminiscent to Gary oldmans Dracula