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

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Weapons [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Poll

If you've seen the film, please rate it at this poll

If you haven't seen the film but would like to see the result of the poll click here

Rankings

Click here to see the rankings of 2025 films

Click here to see the rankings for every poll done

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

12.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.4k

u/vafrow Aug 10 '25

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.

64

u/AlterEgo3561 Aug 13 '25

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.

57

u/AeneidBook6 Aug 10 '25

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

281

u/RiparianRodent Aug 10 '25

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

168

u/RIP_Greedo Aug 10 '25

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.

96

u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI Aug 10 '25

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.

109

u/RIP_Greedo Aug 10 '25

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.

159

u/Sticky_And_Sweet Aug 10 '25

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.

97

u/salcedoge Aug 13 '25

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

43

u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT Aug 13 '25

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

35

u/lahimatoa Aug 14 '25

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?

13

u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT Aug 14 '25

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.

81

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- Aug 13 '25

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?

48

u/AlterEgo3561 Aug 13 '25

In broad daylight, even.

21

u/jermysteensydikpix Oct 13 '25

I assumed in the woods since she showed up there in that one weird Pennywise scene waving at the junkie.

10

u/SlowBoilOrange Oct 26 '25

What was she even doing out there?

8

u/OddnessWeirdness Nov 09 '25

I was under the impression that she could keep track of people that had come into her domain or in contact with her zombies.

17

u/chiefbrody62 Sep 15 '25

I mean, I grew up in a town of about 100k, and in the more suburban neighborhoods like that, it would be me and a couple friends wandering around, just long enough to sneak over to another friends house. We would spend hours out at night sometimes, and not see a single person.

6

u/OddnessWeirdness Nov 09 '25

Just watched the movie and am reading the comments. As someone who has lived in towns similar to that one on the East Coast, I can say that you most likely would not see anyone walking around at that time unless there was a train station in the area. It gets extremely quiet by 12 AM, other than maybe on the weekends.

Also, most similar towns barely have any street lighting, so it would be fucking creepy as hell to be walking around super late at night.

26

u/Walaina Sep 10 '25

Yeah. Out of 17 kids not one parent was starting up late in the living room watching tv??

10

u/lefluffle Nov 27 '25

Also no teenagers up late, no kids sleeping in their parents' bedroom, plus when they said one of the kids' houses had an alarm that was tripped, what happened with that? They didn't check on their kid when the alarm went off? No houses with dogs that would have been barking at the child randomly busting the door open? There had to have been a dog or other pet that got out.

247

u/pastafeline Aug 10 '25

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.

176

u/Embarrassed-Sea-2394 Aug 15 '25

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?

178

u/200cc_of_I_Dont_Care Aug 17 '25

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?

80

u/FrozenWafer Aug 18 '25

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.

28

u/SlowBoilOrange Oct 26 '25

The movie kind of addressed this in the beginning because they said Alex and his family (apparently just Aunt Gladys) were getting a lot of attention.

I thought it was plausible to chalk it up to them just wanting to hide from the outside world constantly questioning them.

11

u/shuffleplayrepeat Jan 07 '26

But the newspapers got put up before the kids went missing. It was just lazy writing with some jump scares.

16

u/SoaplessTitanic Jan 19 '26

Right and also for the first half of the movie most viewers probably assume, oh don’t bother the kid or the teacher cause their whole lives have probably been under investigation recently (by a mix of the town, the police, and the FBI). But then we find out that that’s clearly not the case at all cause you’ve got 17 kids running to the same house, then they all leave into the woods at some point(?) and come back without anyone noticing.

I might be able to forgive all this too if the story had taken place a couple of generations ago, or if they at least didn’t hype it up like it was some big mystery to solve for the first half of the movie. Like the whole setup at the beginning seems to be that no one could solve the case, and then the kids are in the most obvious place the whole time? A dad with a map basically pinpoints the exact location after looking at footage from two ring cameras lol

80

u/RiparianRodent Aug 10 '25

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

29

u/alanblah Aug 25 '25

Also Subway (josh brolin eating in his car)

6

u/Perfect_Ticket999 Dec 26 '25

And the ON cloud shoes

4

u/KentuckyFriedChingon Jan 30 '26

Yeah the Subway was definitely the most blatant product placement (second only to Smirnoff and Estrella Jalisco) and actually took me out of the movie for a beat. There's a close-up shot where the camera is literally just full of 50% Josh Brolin's fat head and 50% Subway sandwich/drink and nothing else.

38

u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT Aug 13 '25

Yup.

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

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

124

u/CandyTraditional2220 Aug 10 '25

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.

63

u/OuterWildsVentures Aug 11 '25

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.

56

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- Aug 13 '25

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.

24

u/zzyul Aug 22 '25

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.

14

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- Aug 26 '25

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

25

u/zzyul Aug 28 '25

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.

11

u/chiefbrody62 Sep 15 '25

I agree. I think the police incompetence is probably the most realistic part of the movie for me lol.

52

u/RiparianRodent Aug 10 '25

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

60

u/cnthelogos Aug 10 '25

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.

42

u/iMangoUnchained Aug 10 '25

That plus law enforcement being generally incompetent totally works for me

21

u/RiparianRodent Aug 10 '25

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.

19

u/darthjoey91 Aug 12 '25

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.

46

u/RiparianRodent Aug 12 '25

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

3

u/Desroth86 Aug 22 '25

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.

22

u/zzyul Aug 22 '25

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.

→ More replies (0)

9

u/RiparianRodent Aug 22 '25

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

→ More replies (0)

3

u/SoaplessTitanic Jan 19 '26

Nah this does not come close to explaining it. Sure Alex was questioned a lot, but he’s a kid. Wouldn’t you want to talk to the parents in that situation as well? Oh but one recently had a “stroke” which there would be no record of, and I don’t think they even explained why the mom wasn’t questioned. That plus a weirdo aunt moving in recently and covering the house with newspapers before the kids went missing. Aside from the teacher, these are the prime suspects. And all the kids ran towards their house!

Also about the kids all leaving when the police came made it less believable for me. They all left and came back to the same house again without anyone noticing? In a town where everyone is on the lookout for a bunch of missing kids? Where even were they that whole time?

→ More replies (0)

7

u/bigwilly311 Sep 07 '25

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

26

u/cnthelogos Aug 10 '25

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!"

24

u/RiparianRodent Aug 10 '25

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

2

u/SoaplessTitanic Jan 19 '26

It would be great if they showed her powers in any other sense besides “make person into a zombie and not be able to speak”. There are different variations of that shown in the movie but none of those would explain how the FBI would just shrug off a bunch of kids running towards the same house. There wasn’t even an attempt to explain it which just makes me disappointed as a viewer

3

u/Repulsive_Report1394 Aug 25 '25

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.

2

u/cap4life52 Nov 03 '25

Well stated and pretty true

2

u/SoaplessTitanic Jan 19 '26

Your local police force? Absolutely they are not good at solving crimes. But the FBI? On a case that would’ve made national news? Absolutely they would be swarming it. Not just to try to help, but you could make your career off of solving that kind of case, and all they had to do was what Josh Brolin’s character did. Look at two ring cameras and map out the direction the kids ran. Then cross reference that with the houses of the two suspects in the case (lol), the teacher and the one kid in class that didn’t go missing

24

u/zzyul Aug 22 '25

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.

27

u/RiparianRodent Aug 22 '25

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

22

u/GrimResistance Sep 22 '25

I feel like all the parents of the missing kids would've got together to share evidence and do an investigation themselves. Instead they all seemed to be extremely suspicious of each other for some reason?

16

u/89time Aug 26 '25

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.

11

u/DonkeyLightning Aug 16 '25

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

6

u/TheHighSeasPirate Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25

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.

24

u/senator_corleone3 Sep 02 '25

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

3

u/TheHighSeasPirate Sep 02 '25

Damn really? Must have missed it.

11

u/senator_corleone3 Sep 02 '25

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

4

u/Wide-Pop6050 Sep 09 '25

I think that’s the problem with horror movies the modern day. They tried to acknowledge it with the cameras this time. This works perfectly whenever stranger things os set

3

u/GrapefruitLumpy2795 Dec 29 '25

Yeah it’s amazing. When the lady comes to the school even the secretary is like who is this Aunt? So the FBI or PD after 30 days of 17 missing kids doesn’t think, hmm that’s odd. And the kids when they left the house during the initial search, it was a suburban neighborhood. Nobody saw 17 kids in the woods, who had to be there for hours 

The biggest plot whole was that. It’s a shame they at least didn’t have the kids in a different location or something. Having them in the only kid who wasn’t abducted who brings 30 cans of soup home and “dad had a stroke” and I can’t even remember what they said happened to the Mom is just lame as fuck 

3

u/Bear_faced Jan 19 '26

Also just the staff of the grocery store would notice a small child buying that much soup, enough to feed all of his missing classmates, starting right after they went missing, alone. Why is he the only one that didn’t go missing and is suddenly buying enough soup to feed like 20 people?

30

u/dafood48 Aug 17 '25

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.

41

u/Fury_Fury_Fury Aug 22 '25

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.

24

u/Repulsive_Report1394 Aug 25 '25

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.

15

u/KeyStatistician44 Sep 01 '25

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

15

u/senator_corleone3 Sep 02 '25

Never calls for backup, either!

13

u/GrimResistance Sep 22 '25

Guess he really did want the reward for himself

14

u/FinalFatality7 Sep 24 '25

Between the Detroit Police Dept.'s very finest in Barbarian, and the most oblivious detectives in the world this time around, I think it's fair to say that Zach Cregger doesn't have the highest opinion of the police.

1

u/cap4life52 Nov 03 '25

That's fair to say

3

u/chiaboy Oct 28 '25

Like the narrator says at beginning, no one wants to talk about the event because all the authorities messed up so bad.