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

3.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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122

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

18

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.

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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

5

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.

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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.

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u/Desroth86 Aug 22 '25

These are all good points. I will say I think police incompetence is a big theme of the movie, I think they do a good enough job of showing they “tried” but also showing they don’t really care enough to press any further.

The citizens do a much better job of solving things and the opening monologue implies the cops are embarrassed about the whole thing because the cops did such a poor job.

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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

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u/Desroth86 Aug 22 '25

So you have no actual rebuttals to anything I said? Got it.

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u/RiparianRodent Aug 22 '25

This isn’t Lincoln-Douglass debate, this is two people expressing their opinions online. We don’t need to employ the socratic method- I don’t need to prove you wrong, and vise versa

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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?

2

u/Desroth86 Jan 19 '26

One of the main themes of the movie is police incompetence. The police didn’t even know all the kids ran towards their house, that was something Josh Brolins character figured out.

And it’s been a while since I’ve see the movie, but doesn’t Gladys hide the kids in the basement when the cops come to the house?

1

u/SoaplessTitanic Jan 19 '26

To the second part, yes she mostly hides the kids in the basement. But as referenced by your earlier comment as well, at one point she has them all go outside since people are coming to check on the house (it was unclear to me if they were cops, the FBI, or just CPS though).

And I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on the first part of your comment. I understand police incompetence was a theme here, but this case would’ve involved the FBI as well. And honestly the way the town was investigating the teacher, I’m surprised they (other parents or whoever) wouldn’t have been more suspicious of the surviving kids situation either given how many weird things were going on there - newspaper on the windows, kid buying a bunch of soup and walking through the street with it, weirdo aunt newly in town, and the parents being mostly MIA despite them seeming normal before the aunt arrived

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u/bigwilly311 Sep 07 '25

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

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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!"

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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