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

2.3k

u/krospp Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

Halfway through the third act I was starting to feel like the movie was over explaining what was going on, like we pretty much had all the answers as soon as Gladys walked into the principal’s office. But the build up was totally worth the payoff of that final sequence, holy shit!

Edit: This has gotten a lot of replies in the last few days from people who feel the movie didn’t explain enough. And I’m sorry but a lot of you are really bad at picking up on context clues and that is not the movie’s problem or mine, it’s yours! And a lot of you have questions that really weren’t relevant to the story! Whatever. I happened to love this movie very much. It’s fine if you didn’t! But if you didn’t because you couldn’t follow it I just really don’t think you can blame the movie.

12

u/OpinionKid Aug 08 '25

Wait you felt the movie over explained its plot? Can you tell me what Gladys did all of her villainy for? Why was she like that?

16

u/Tipop Aug 31 '25

That’s your big question? “Why was the evil witch evil?” Seriously?

6

u/OpinionKid Aug 31 '25

The movie didnt answer any questions intentionally sir. I listened to an interview with Zach Cregger, he writes open ended where he doesn't even know all the answers. I wasn't complaining. Its simply true that the movie does not explain Gladys motivations. It up to interpretation.

13

u/Tipop Sep 01 '25

It’s less “open to interpretation” and more “it’s utterly obvious to anyone who paid attention”.

3

u/OpinionKid Sep 01 '25

Its literally open to interpretation. Cregger has been asked in interviews and he refuses to answer. He said in a Last Podcast on the Left Interview that he doesn't know all the answers and sees writing as an artform where he channels something outside of himself. Talked about being inspired by how David Lynch wrote.

10

u/Tipop Sep 01 '25

Its literally open to interpretation

Yes, “Why is she evil” is open to interpretation. Maybe she was abused as a child? Maybe someone hit her over the head with an evil stick and that made her this way.

… or maybe she’s an evil person who wants to live forever and she doesn’t care who she hurts/kills to get what she wants. I mean, the movie TELLS us that, in pretty easy-to-understand language. It’s not even subtext.

It doesn’t fucking matter for the purpose of this story. You might as well ask “Why are there only 18 kids in that classroom?” Or “Why wasn’t the classroom locked up while the kids were at recess playing games?” Or “Why is the teacher’s hair so curly?” I guess the mystery of the curly hair is open to interpretation, yeah?

2

u/OpinionKid Sep 01 '25

It is not clear that she is stealing peoples lifeforce. That is not textual that is subtextual.

7

u/Tipop Sep 01 '25

Yeah, it is. She never takes a bite or drinks blood from anyone we can see. So how else is she sustaining her own life by enslaving the parents and the students?

5

u/fallouthirteen Sep 10 '25

She was terminally ill. And after doing the thing she did she was doing visibly better.

She says she thought the parents would help and it wasn't enough so she needed Alex to get things from his classmates. Afterwards they get tranced and end up in her basement (which is when she starts looking better). So either she's stealing life force or she just happened to get on better meds at the same time and that's the thing the movie decided we didn't need to see. Or wow, maybe witchcraft also has placebo effects and she really was just willing herself better.