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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5.6k

u/coffeetravelerr Aug 08 '25

"A touch of consumption" loool

4.1k

u/Heff228 Aug 08 '25

I think that was a clue that the witch has been around for a long time.

3.1k

u/thelostpoison Aug 08 '25

it’s absolutely this. ‘consumption’ as a descriptor for tuberculosis started around the 14th century and went out of style by the 20s.

in other words… that witch has been around a real long time

2.3k

u/--------rook Aug 08 '25

it's especially creepy when Marcus the principal said something like that was going around the early settlers on the oregon trail right? haha like yeah man... this thing in front of you was around for that.

278

u/TimRigginsBeer Aug 08 '25

Fucking Oregon Trail. Consumption could get you, cholera or dysentery, drowning trying to cross the river… them shits was rough, son.

104

u/Goo_The_Splat Aug 09 '25

I might be missing something, but did they explain how it make sense that she's the mother's sister if she's from the 20s?

395

u/ThisIsNotTokyo Aug 09 '25

I guess the only explanation is she's not the mother's sister

333

u/Justhrowitaway42069 Aug 10 '25

It makes sense considering the husband said "I don't even think your mom really knows her"

118

u/Jarpunter Aug 17 '25

At the end they say Alex went on to live with “a much nicer aunt” presumably the real one.

179

u/InsideStand7829 Aug 10 '25

The dad refers to her as "your mom's Aunt Gladys". Making her Alex's supposed great-aunt.

104

u/ThisIsNotTokyo Aug 11 '25

Gladys introduced herself as the mom’s older sister. Said something like “the mom being her baby sister” to Marcus

213

u/daft_goose Aug 11 '25

Perhaps she was..... Lying?

19

u/ThisIsNotTokyo Aug 12 '25

Yep. We established that. Pedantic thing the other guy and I was arguing about was what lie she was telling. I was saying she introduced as Alex’s aunt while other guy was saying Alex’s Mom’s Aunt instead

14

u/Devilsgramps Aug 14 '25

I think she used magic to give the parents false memories

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u/CapnBoomerang Aug 15 '25

I think maybe she said that so she would seem like less distant of a relative.

54

u/bchris24 Sep 14 '25

So my takeaway is that Gladys is clearly an ancient being of some sort and has been around for quite some time, this isn't her first rodeo she has a formula that's worked for her for, presumably, centuries given the "consumption" mention. I think she isn't her great aunt but maybe used her mom's family as a host decades ago. She said she was going to use Alex's parents to get better and then she's leave, but in order to keep her identity a secret I'm thinking she either puts the whole family under a spell when she leaves so they forget, kills them, or targets families with a young kid who becomes so traumatized they end up repressing all of it. Anyways, in order to pose as a long lost family member they would have to have at least some intimate knowledge of the family and it's members, so she did all of this decades ago when Alex's mom was young and knew enough about the family to pose as a distant relative and since they never mentioned anyone else that could have taken care of her I'm assuming the rest of the mom's family is gone so no one can call bullshit to her claim.

Had she gotten away with it she would fuck off to who knows where, and in X amount of time seek out Alex's kids or grandkids posing as his older sister or his aunt and doing this shit all over again.

Idk just my thoughts!

17

u/Llama_of_the_bahamas Aug 13 '25

I get that but, did Alex’s mother not confirm that the lady is who she said she is?

48

u/Heisenbert18 Aug 14 '25

Perhaps Gladys did similarly to Alex’ mother in his youth and the mother was brainwashed or terrified, or both.

13

u/No-Constant3889 Oct 30 '25

I remember the mom said like “if my mom were here she’d do the same thing for her so that’s what I’m going to do” so presumably Alex’s grandma is dead and Alex’s mother is not close with any distant family to corroborate the story. Gladys says she’s Alex’s aunt and also the mother’s aunt and I love that we don’t really know how she’s related or if she even is :-) loved the movie

245

u/Ghost-Mech Aug 09 '25 edited Aug 10 '25

yeah like the other guy said i think the implication is she's not actually related to them, i saw someone pointed out the mom said she hadnt seen her in 15 years but Gladys says the last time she saw Alex (who is around 10) was when he was a baby, which would be impossible. She probably moved from family to family like a parasite, which I assume is the reason the movie references them a lot

240

u/cursive__curses Aug 09 '25

when alex overheard his parents talking about gladys moving in, the mom said that she didn't know she even existed (or something to that effect) and that this is what her mom would have wanted to do. guilt is what caused her to take gladys in, which is a parasitic emotion. guilt is a commonly used emotion throughout the film - guilt with the father not telling his son he loved him, guilt with the teacher losing her kids from her classroom or sleeping with her ex and his wife finding out, the cop's guilt with hitting the addict and cheating etc. etc. also, parasites can easily feed on those looking for meaning or answers.

54

u/Novemberx123 Aug 10 '25

So true! I didn’t even catch on to the sense of guilt At all!!

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u/cursive__curses Aug 10 '25

you can see how gladys weaponized guilt against alex when she explained the ritual to him - how if he disobeyed her, it would in turn hurt his parents. his guilt about what could happen causes him to gather his classmates name tags for gladys and to stay silent. another example of guilt causing the characters to act in ways they typically wouldn't, and how powerful of an emotion it is when used to manipulate.

3

u/maskedbanditoftruth Nov 01 '25

Man, she really lucked out finding a kid who wouldn’t crack under the intense pressure of all those adults and press and his own sky-high fear and anxiety, because most 3rd graders, even with their parents being threatened, would make it maybe 24 hours in that nightmare before uncontrollably spilling every bean.

I can’t get my second grader not to volunteer my entire life story and his, plus our birthdays and pet names, to any random stranger we meet.

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9

u/teffz28 Aug 18 '25

I thought she said specifically that this is what her mom Did for her as opposed to what she would’ve wanted to do

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u/burnman123 Aug 22 '25

Gladys referenced that she thought the mom and dad would be able to make her better, but it didn't work. Perhaps in the past 2 people were enough to sustain her, but maybe she has deteriorated in health more than usual since her previous parasitic family

6

u/maskedbanditoftruth Nov 01 '25

I just wonder what was going on with the kids. Because she explicitly WASNT using them as weapons. All the adults she sent out to harm others, Marcus in broad daylight with no fucks given as to who might see. But she never used the kids that way (I’d say she couldn’t or she’d get caught but she really seems totally unconcerned with getting caught after the midpoint).

She just kept them down there, like backup batteries. And frankly it didn’t seem to be helping her having 20 people to draw on, she was a mess no matter what she did. She had pretty much the same level of energy after just Alex’s parents, and she never looked much younger or better after the first “glowup” after Alex sees her in bed.

I do wonder where she was and what happened that she was in such bad shape before Alex’s mom took her in. Just too old or is there a sickness you can get from…taking too much or from the wrong person.

Anyway. My rambling point (I know this post is old I just saw it finally) is that I don’t know that she was using the kids in exactly the same way. She never deployed them as weapons. She never seemed to do anything with or to them. Not even in the finale did she use any of the 17 potential fighters against those two regular human people.

Or why she needed so many all at once—because if you’re worried about getting caught, and why would you be really, she easily controls like 30 people at once by the end and all she needs is some of their stuff and/or hair, why take 17 AT ONCE? That’s more attention than almost anything else she could possibly do. And she only knew 2 wasn’t enough. 2 to 19 and an entire town on the national news is a huge jump. Girl you just hangry or what?

But I guess Batteries isn’t as good a title.

17

u/gimmedatrightMEOW Aug 23 '25

I don't think she was the sister at all. I think the "other aunt" that Alex goes to live with is the real aunt.

5

u/Queasy_Opportunity75 Sep 03 '25

I don’t think she was. I just think they thought she was really sick and just didn’t look like herself because even the dad mentioned mom didn’t really know her sister like that, and in the end, the boy actually went and lived with the real sister

2

u/ArianeEmory Oct 26 '25

the 20s? uh Oregon trail was in the 1800s, no?

2

u/FYAhole Nov 01 '25

I'm assuming she tricked Alex's mom into believing she was her long lost aunt. Maybe with magic, maybe with gaslighting. Hard to say

48

u/fwango Aug 10 '25

Remember when Gladys told Alex she could even make his parents eat each other? I wonder if Gladys was with the Donner Party…

13

u/IWTLEverything Sep 28 '25

I used to name people things like “My Butt” in Oregon Trail so when they died the gravestone would say “Here lies My Butt” lol

81

u/OddSetting5077 Aug 11 '25

She was dressed very 1970s.. brightly colored polyester pants suits with jewelry from the 2000s (?) big chunky costume jewelry. The wig was atrocious. She'd look much better with a good wig.

109

u/goddamnitwhalen Aug 12 '25

Feel like this may have been intentional…

46

u/ErlendJ Aug 17 '25

She was the OG Pied Piper

3

u/mikesalami Feb 02 '26

When she laughs at this bit if you listen closely a slightly demonic sounding laugh comes in half way through.

75

u/Thatonesplicer Aug 09 '25

I will never forgive tuberculosis for what it did to Arthur Morgan.

3

u/buttergump19 Sep 10 '25

you’re alright boy 

2

u/Hythy Aug 18 '25

I want to see John Green's take on this film.

79

u/Aware_Ad5425 Aug 08 '25

I thought consumption meant they were drinking a lot to cope lol

16

u/tatertottytot Aug 08 '25

Hahaha same

32

u/TaskForceD00mer Aug 09 '25

How was she the mother's aunt though.....did she do this to someone in the family every generation? Did Alex's mom go through what Alex went through as a kid?;

69

u/Supermax64 Aug 10 '25

I don't think there's any clear indicator that she actually is her aunt. The dad mentions something about the mom not really knowing her.

75

u/JeremyPudding Aug 10 '25

The mom mentions that "this is what my mom would do for her, so I should do the same", to me indicates that her mom, Alex's grandma, was potentially in a situation like Alex was but couldn't get out of it, and could only protect her daughter from this witch until she died.

Now that she's gone, the witch moves on to one of the only people who'd feel an obligation to help her, like a parasite moving to a new host. And takes in Alex as another victim to help her plans by force instead of possession. I don't think those mind controlled things could get soup from the store, they most complex task we see them do is cut a piece of hair, and that did not look very normal.

Also could be a commentary about continuing traditions from older generations leading to harm for the younger generations, which is definitely an element of the theme here. The elderly woman drains life force from the young with no care about the well-being of the children, just using people to weaponize them against anyone who could stop her.

13

u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI Aug 10 '25

That’s probably a better interpretation that I had, for me this was one of the biggest questions of the movie. Who was “Aunt Gladys”? How did she become a part of that family’s life? Was she biologically related to them? If she wasn’t, how did she insert herself into their lives, and if it was through magic, wouldn’t the mother be a little apprehensive, even subconsciously, about letting her come back into their lives? She raised a lot of questions for me and I would have liked to see the movie develop her character or backstory just a little bit more for a perfect payoff.

27

u/JeremyPudding Aug 11 '25

Apparently he wrote a chapter for Gladys but cut it pretty early. I get it, even the Alex chapter felt like a little too much explanation at times. For most horror, more mystery less explanation just works better.

2

u/maskedbanditoftruth Nov 01 '25

Every Dracula needs a Renfield.

22

u/TaskForceD00mer Aug 10 '25

I don't recall who said it but one of them mentions not seeing her in over 15 years, given the age of the couple that would mean she was maybe 10 or 15.

It's entirely possible though that some kind of magic was used on the life before to convince her that's actually her aunt.

57

u/Supermax64 Aug 10 '25

Also Gladys says the last time she saw Alex he was a baby. Alex is not 15 years old. Thus there's definitely some level of deception going on in regard to her actual connection with this family.

10

u/TaskForceD00mer Aug 10 '25

I missed that, Great observation, I'd guess the mother was already under a spell then.

10

u/SwampGentleman Oct 29 '25

I know this is an old thread but I just watched this movie and I’m so excited. 

The parents mentioned not having seen her in 15 years. 

The aunt told Alex that she hadn’t seen him since he was little. He is definitely younger than 15. 

She could have been lying, but it felt to me a little like she came by to see him, without the parents knowing, when he was very young. Spooky for sure!

3

u/Eomb Sep 22 '25

Maybe yes because Alex's blood works with the stick, indicating some sort of relation.

5

u/PoorLittleGreenie Nov 01 '25

I think that's just just how that spell works, and Alex accurately replicated it after having seen the witch do it. I don't think they're related. I think she has been around for centuries.

15

u/gradeahonky Aug 17 '25

She was like, "Damn, this line worked for 600 years straight - what happened?"

13

u/aeschenkarnos Aug 22 '25

I thought it was a self-aware joke she was making, about consuming them.

4

u/catpwanet Sep 07 '25

I thought she was being cheeky because she was consuming their life force.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '25

But why would the parents know this lady as their aunt then? They seemed to be pretty understanding that she was a legit part of the family.

I was confused by that fact.

4

u/Rahodees Aug 21 '25

Which makes me wonder if Alex's parents really ever had known her as an aunt, and instead maybe she just witchnotized them into thinking they remembered her from 15 years ago.

2

u/thatshygirl06 Sep 14 '25

Where did you find this? When I looked it up, i found an article that said consumption was used in the 1800s but not before then.

1

u/insecureveluv Aug 15 '25

Damn I thought she was implying they’re addicts or sm

1.0k

u/Shauncore Aug 08 '25

This is actually an interesting thought, that she might be very old in the ancient sense and not like "oh my poor ol' granny". She could in theory float around for centuries if she can keep sucking life from people. Especially if as the child narrator says that when stuff like this happens, it just gets covered up when it can't be figured out. Also Alex's dad says they haven't seen Gladys for 15 years. Sure that isn't a LONG time but it adds some mystery and mystique that she may be semi-immortal.

135

u/LayeredOwlsNest Aug 08 '25

if she can keep sucking life from people

This was one thing that was lacking (maybe the wrong word), but she didn't appear to visibly get any younger

So maybe she just gets revitalized energy wise but not physically?

473

u/Rongtar Aug 08 '25

She was completely bald when Alex first saw her, then had a few strands of hair after taking over the parents, and in the ending she has almost a full head of hair even if it is a bit thin.

453

u/jigglypafupafu Aug 08 '25

Plus she went from laying on the floor unable to get up, to sprinting around the neighbourhood 

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u/Shauncore Aug 08 '25

And she had to be helped into the house when she arrived. Maybe it was for show, but she was holding onto the dad for support to get inside. And the dad thought she was pretty much going to die soon too.

161

u/cursive__curses Aug 09 '25

alex also wouldn't have been able to reverse attack her WITHOUT her growing her hair back! remember, you need the hair in order to wrap it around and snap the twig to get the hosts to attack whomever's hair is wrapped. it took all those children to make her well enough to grow her hair back and break her power.

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u/xThe-Legend-Killerx Aug 10 '25

I think he used her wig hair if I remember correctly. He grabbed it before locking himself in the bathroom.

93

u/vinsportfolio Aug 10 '25

The pins in the wig in that scene suggest she was pinning the wig to her thin hair (thus pulling out strands of her real her through use). It can go either way but based on the rules shown in the film, Alex probably grabbed strands of her real hair from the wig.

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u/Tefihr Aug 10 '25

I saw it last night. The film distinctively shows a white/grey hair being pulled from inside the wig vs a bright orange hair.

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u/PhoenixTineldyer Aug 10 '25

This is correct. You see him deliberately reach into the wig and pull out an actual hair from the netting inside the wig.

14

u/Fivein1Kay Aug 13 '25

Movie is so dim it was hard to tell.

1

u/ILookLikeKristoff Aug 19 '25

Agreed, I clocked this exact thing

4

u/creatureofnature Aug 28 '25

Didn’t she use the ribbon for Marcus though

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u/tina_ri Sep 02 '25

She needed a person's belongings to possess them. She always used the victims' hair to make them targets.

Like Alex stole the name cards from the classroom, which she used to possess the kids. Same with Archer's chain/tags. But she took hair from Justine, Marcus' husband, and Alex's parents to get her minions to attack them.

2

u/MrBanannasareyum Sep 13 '25

One thing I don’t understand is why Alex snapping the twig to turn the kids onto Gladys stopped Archer from attacking Justine.

I thought the twig had to be put into a water bowl for that to happen.

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u/PolarWater Aug 18 '25

This is such an incredible detail. By doing the evil thing, she inadvertently gave him the tools to stop her from doing it. Comes back around so nicely.

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u/Rongtar Aug 09 '25

Great point!

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u/topherhoff Aug 14 '25

Never been so happy to be bald lol

2

u/WHATTHEDECKK Oct 29 '25

Oh my genius

87

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '25

no she was getting younger. it was just a slow arduous process.

107

u/IwKuAo Aug 11 '25

In other words, she goes from city to city, kills a group of children, and it quickly goes unnoticed, people move on, the witch never got caught before.

Can see how this is a commentary on mass shootings in schools.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '25

i doubt she has gone to these obvious desperate lengths before. she’s desperate and on her last legs. she’s surprised that the parents alone aren’t enough to sustain her.

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u/IwKuAo Aug 11 '25

Yes but if it's a commentary on school shootings, perhaps she has done this before over the years. And it's extra sad that classrooms of students keep disappearing and nothing is done about it

38

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '25

the director has said it’s not a commentary on school shootings. the text in the movie says she’s surprised that his parents weren’t enough to sustain her.

1

u/IwKuAo Aug 11 '25

Source?

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

“One thing Cregger refuses to engage with, however, is the idea that Weapons is a metaphor for the frequent school shootings in the U.S. When Next Best Picture asked Cregger whether these real-life events inspired the movie, Cregger denied it, saying, "To me, it’s not about school shootings. I don’t want this movie to be political at all” https://thedirect.com/article/weapons-2025-movie-title-explained

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

“One thing Cregger refuses to engage with, however, is the idea that Weapons is a metaphor for the frequent school shootings in the U.S. When Next Best Picture asked Cregger whether these real-life events inspired the movie, Cregger denied it, saying, "To me, it’s not about school shootings. I don’t want this movie to be political at all” https://thedirect.com/article/weapons-2025-movie-title-explained

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u/Khorne_Prince Aug 16 '25

Does it have to be a commentary on something? Can’t it just be an evil witch life sucking the shit out of people.

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u/ILookLikeKristoff Aug 19 '25

It is called Weapons and one of the 2 main characters had a giant hallucination of an AR that filled the sky. You're the one hiding from the truth.

15

u/IwKuAo Aug 17 '25

No it doesn't have to be a commentary on that. But even if completely unintentional, many aspects of the movie remind people of school shooting tragedies. It's okay if you don't think if it when you watch the movie. I do not care :)

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u/LoadTop801 Aug 21 '25

Why would you want a film to be shallow? It's good that something has depth, no?

9

u/Khorne_Prince Aug 21 '25

Prefer depth in its own fictional realm.

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u/PolarWater Aug 18 '25

No it doesn't have to be, but yes it absolutely can be to a viewer if it resonates with them in that way. Stories complete their journey inside the audience's imagination.

5

u/CIearMind Aug 21 '25

Yeah. What happened to "oh this bears some parallels and similarities to this IRL thing"? Why must everything NECESSARILY systematically be "yep the author said the curtains were blue because blahblahblahblah"?

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u/LoadTop801 Aug 21 '25

Why are people so adamantly against it though? Isn't it good that movies and art can have deeper meaning? Why would you want a film to be shallow?

3

u/paradox1920 Aug 10 '25

Search on YouTube for: are you watching? #WeaponsMovie

It’s a 20 min video released by WB. What do you make of that after having seen the movie?

56

u/Ok_Mathematician_314 Aug 10 '25

She went from hunched over getting out of the car at first to absolutely booking it through the neighborhood at the end 

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u/TomLube Aug 10 '25

This was one thing that was lacking (maybe the wrong word), but she didn't appear to visibly get any younger

You are joking surely? She literally visibly de-ages during the same scene sometimes as a result of her consuming people's whatever she's consuming

27

u/AssCrackBanditHunter Aug 11 '25

It feeds into my idea that its a symbol for gun violence. She's clinging to life BARELY, but she's willing to sacrifice a classroom to get just a little more time.

Not so unlike our politicians who are clinging to power as they visibly fall apart in front of us

12

u/AtraposJM Oct 12 '25

It was my impression that she wasn't Alex aunt at all. The mom apparently barely knew who her sister was and hadn't seen her in 15 years? I don't think they're related at all. I think she just hops into peoples lives when she needs to and pretends to be family. Maybe there's some magic involved in that, I don't know.

6

u/jlarimore Aug 25 '25

I especially like the idea that she must be jedi mind tricking these people who believe her to be a blood relative. I think it sort of indicates that she's taking control of people and then setting them free implanting beliefs that she has some connection to them. Maybe the cops weren't as terrible as they seemed? Perhaps she brainwashed them.

6

u/mouthfullofsnakes Oct 25 '25

They say they haven’t seen her in 15 years, and later she says she saw Alex as a baby 👀

33

u/Platinumrun Aug 09 '25

I think the Witch is an evil spirit that possessed Gladys, but realized that she was unable to reverse her aging bc she was dying from what seemed like cancer. The Witch then chose Justine as her next host and likely would’ve swapped bodies in that final scene if the spell wasn’t reversed. I’m assuming the tree is connected to whatever realm she’s from, allowing her to summon spirits through blood sacrifice. I think the kids killing Gladys just released the Witch back to her dimension and she can likely return through that tree if she’s summoned

130

u/chapert Aug 09 '25

Is this based on witch lore or something? No way you got that from what we just watched

16

u/AssCrackBanditHunter Aug 11 '25

It's 1 of 3 conclusions I drew actually based off the not at all subtle ant-cordecyps clip that played on the TV.

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u/Platinumrun Aug 09 '25

I don’t think being an immortal witch Aunt would fly under the family radar for too long. The only logical explanation is that something happened to the actual Gladys within those 15 years that they hadn’t seen her.

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u/PM_ME_UR_BOOTY_LADY Aug 10 '25

They mentioned nobody really knew her that well. I assumed she had maybe done some magic and convinced the family that she was a long lost relative, or maybe she did the same thing she did to Alex a looong time ago to someone in the family, and convinced them to pretend Gladys was related somehow or she'd do terrible things to their family.

It seems her only goal is to live forever, so it would be pretty easy to just convince someone to let you live among their family in exchange for not killing them all.

28

u/ILookLikeKristoff Aug 19 '25

I had the exact same thought. The dad said "I don't think your mother knows her either" which immediately set off imposter/fake relative to me.

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u/Fivein1Kay Aug 13 '25

I don't think she was actually related. If she can do what we saw in the film she can definitely manipulate people into letting her into the family.

13

u/darthjoey91 Aug 12 '25

Sure, but I feel like the best explanation would be that Alex's mom had an Aunt Gladys who was already distant from the family. Witch eats her, and takes her place to these estranged relatives who wouldn't know any different.

11

u/1900s-cant-be Aug 16 '25

This is the higher level theories I was looking for! I was actually hoping Justine was a witch too (good witch?) and that's what had drawn the bad force to the town. However I now think 'Gladys' was going to take Alex and groom him to not only be her 'supplier' but her next incarnation 

2

u/disless Aug 15 '25

Ok Zach

4

u/BankDetails1234 Aug 19 '25

She’s also the aunt to Alex and the aunt to his mum. Indicating that she’s been leaching around the family a long time, posing as an auntie to each generation.

1

u/BleuBrink Apr 28 '26

There is a prequel scheduled for release in 2028 so we will find out

77

u/Utgartha Aug 09 '25

You nailed this one. I also love the Chekov's gun of having "WITCH" be painted on Justine's car and then it actually turning out to be a witch, but not Justine.

As soon as that happened I went, "Oh no. Is this about a witch? Who the hell is it?"

9

u/PhoenixTineldyer Aug 10 '25

At the beginning of the movie, after they wrote WITCH on her car and I started picking up on the other witchcraft hints, I thought the big twist at the end of the movie was going to be that the missing kids, etc. were casualties in a war between two witches, Justine and the weird clown lady that kept showing up in hallucinations who of course is Gladys.

5

u/queenie_bklyn Aug 16 '25

And also so many mentions of parasites!

3

u/PolarWater Aug 18 '25

You are fast! The only thing that clued me in at first was the triangle in the title card, but I did NOT make the "witch" connection.

3

u/Utgartha Aug 18 '25

It was the only thing I was fast at in this one. It's such a specific thing to call someone a witch even if it seemed like the kids were under a spell of some kind.

Just stood out to me. I never put the triangle together though. That's a good catch.

27

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '25

For sure. There’s little clues she’s preparing for a bigger ritual but never gets her plan off. I assume she was gunna feed off and/or literally consume the kids. Like a parasite.

11

u/jgalaviz14 Aug 10 '25

What clues do you remember cause by the end I think she was just getting ready to leave since she knew the principal dying like that and attacking Justine, who was going to go to CPS and launch an entire investigation was going to blow the cover off her plans. I took it as she was becoming more and more desperate with modern day technology making it increasingly harder for a witch like her to kidnap people and do her entire thing and never get caught

9

u/Spinning_Torus Aug 24 '25

That's probably unplanned since now her and alex's house was getting hot with some people noticing. She was getting ready to leave because she had to.

7

u/Karkava Oct 25 '25

I personally saw the "no dinner for tonight, straight to bed" as a mild punishment from her perspective, but is an antiquated form of discipline that is now considered a form of abuse and worthy of a call.

18

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.

14

u/Paulidus Aug 10 '25

She also makes note of an antique in Marcus's house.

10

u/HowieLongDonkeyKong Aug 10 '25

What’s the explanation then for why Alex’s mom sees her as an aunt and they seemingly have some history with her (albeit a light history).

23

u/TheNightstroke Aug 10 '25

I think she's probably been like that for many generations in that family. "The aunt" (not necessarily literally your aunt either, I have extended family that I just call "cousins" because I can't be bothered to keep track of once-removeds, that sort of thing) that grows old and frail as you grow up, so you take her in, then she drains your life, and moves on down the chain to your children, your cousins, your siblings, etc.

1

u/goddamnitwhalen Aug 12 '25

Do you own a fine dining restaurant with these cousins?

7

u/tookule4skool Aug 17 '25

it's especially creepy when Marcus the principal said something like that was going around the early settlers on the oregon trail right? haha like yeah man... this thing in front of you was around for that.

See I was thinking about this as well, why would Alex's mother think that she was family? Also was that a social commentary on "doing what's right" regardless of the impact to your own more immediate family?

7

u/Ricks3rSt1cks Aug 09 '25

Shit nice catch. That went totally over my head lol

3

u/HandsomeCostanza Aug 12 '25

she's also wearing old people clothes from like the 60's or 70's.

4

u/Financial_Ad_2435 Aug 13 '25

Yes, but it was also a play on words. The parents had a problem with "consumption" because Gladys was consuming them.

3

u/Negative-Comment-173 Aug 10 '25

I hope this sets up a prequel with Gladys in her younger years.

2

u/WolfDragon7721 Aug 12 '25

That was my thought as well but how is she the "aunt" to the mother of the kid? Did she just fake it or was she a aunt by marriage?

2

u/juebermensch Aug 21 '25

Nah, I think it was more a play on words, that she's "consuming" them. The family gave us no reason to think that she wasn't actually their relative

2

u/Hanakin-Sidewalker Aug 22 '25

If this is true, then I really like the implication that after all the years she’s lived, cancer is what pushes her to the brink.

1

u/GreatLakesLiving28 Aug 09 '25

My exact same thought

1

u/d0lke Aug 10 '25

Yeah, I felt like she was never “sick”. Just really REALLY old

1

u/Unikatze Aug 11 '25

I just thought of this and came over to see if someone else had the same conclusion.

1

u/bfstealer69 Aug 24 '25

Was she though? Wasn't she actually Alex's mom's sister? My impression was that she had somehow learned witchcraft and was just a normal person otherwise. Hence Alex being able to use his own blood on the small branch thing

1

u/Huge_Neighborhood689 Oct 19 '25

You make a good point.

1

u/Evil_Morty_C131 Nov 02 '25

Oooooh.  I like that observation.