I thought this was great. All I knew was that it was a highly regarded horror film, and the digital-store poster showed a woman with glasses. So I'm watching the movie and thinking, "I thought the woman on the poster was older than Julia Garner."

I thought the shifting perspectives was one of my favorite things about the movie. Sure, the info could all be conveyed in a linear way, but this kind of layered reveal is more fun.

I wasn't sure what the gun in the sky meant, but the more I thought about it the more I figured it was an allegory for school shooting. A whole classroom is wiped out other than one kid, and everyone asks why. But I read the last page of this thread first, and now I just went back and saw everyone saying that the director denies any political messages. So maybe I'm wrong, but we all take different things away from art, even if they weren't intended. (And yes, shot kids don't come back, and there aren't witches involved, but things don't have to exactly match to make an allegory.) As far as the comment that we're in a "brainwashed" era, is that because we've been brainwashed into thinking that guns kill people, or that school shootings are bad? Never mind, I don't want to know. I also think that the title "Weapons" was a bit of a stretch because that wasn't what the witch was primarily using people for, which makes me think it was an overtly political reference. But I'm probably wrong about that too.

No. The reveal that he's Archer's son. We're rooting for the guy who's son bullied the kid into betraying his entire class and kicked off the murder spree that happens.

What a winner of a film. It was my Halloween movie, and I was first a little dismayed by the run time, I figured it was too long for me to make it a double feature night (turned out to be an unfounded fear; I got in a viewing of the '81 classic Hell Night after Weapons ended).

It also didn't have a Halloween "feel" to it, but my disappointment didn't last because the story just sucked me in immediately. I didn't even care that it didn't feel seasonal (and besides, I live in Southern California. It was 80 degrees today, we had a company lunch outside and I drove home with the top down in my convertible. We're not gonna get "curl up on the couch and watch a scary movie" vibes for at least another month or two, if we get vibes like that at all with a "La Nina" winter predicted but I digress). It was about 90 minutes of interesting storytelling, then some good horror for the last 40.

I do think this is a vast improvement on Barbarian, which is still a film I liked, but Weapons is destined to be a classic.

As for the "reveal" that Josh Brolin's kid is Alex's bully, I'm ok with it. I like moral conflict in my movies. The kid may be an obnoxious shit, but what is Brolin supposed to do? Not care that the kid was abducted? Julia Garner's character was far from an angel herself, drinking too much, sleeping with her married ex, essentially stalking Alex after being specfically told not to bother him. Once you realize her actions were warranted, you start to come around on her, just like you lose your respect for Brolin. It's great character arcing, instead of the good guy always remaining good throughout the movie, and the bad guy staying bad. Here you get a little see-sawing, and that's a good thing.

Will be revisiting.

Excellent film - best of its type Ive seen in a long time. It had just the right amount of dark humor to balance out the sheer horror of the situation. I heard he wants to do a prequel about Gladys which is OK as slong as its not just a corporate cash grab. Id go see it.

I see what you’re saying. I guess I didn’t interpret Matthew being the bully as the catalyst for Alex doing what he did. I assumed his sole motivation was protecting his parents. I think he would have given up his classmates whether he was being bullied or not. He would have done anything to keep his parents safe.

That was my take as well. It’s not as if Gladys said she needed energy, and suddenly Alex’s eyes lit up with an evil gleam. He was just going along with it. Maybe getting back at the bullies was a side benefit, but I don’t think we saw that either.

Were they being used as weapons? I ask this because I think it may actually be correct, although not in the way it suggests. They were not directly being used as weapons, but were weaponized.

Most of the comments here (and other places) refer to Gladys "feeding" off them, but that would make them batteries, not weapons. The way I see it, she wasn't feeding directly off them, but rather the conflict and emotions their disappearance sparked in the community. It would explain why she was able to hold some weak sway and ability to manipulate the community (the police, the school). This would make more sense with the title, as she was weaponizing people against one another. It was very rare for her to actually use one person to attack another.

With my last post and you saying this, you now have me thinking about the many, many sets of power dynamics in this movie and how those are used to create conflict.

Yes to all this!

The kids turn into Weapons at the end, but Gladys does use other humans as weapons throughout the film.

The gun in the sky, and the direction it was pointing, also led Brolin to pull out the map and figure out where all the kids were going. Metaphorically, I thought the weaponizing of people was an example of stochastic terrorism. In real life that's done through brainwashing, or propaganda, a sort of real world witchcraft.

The instances she uses people as actual tools of violence only happen when she is directly threatened (Marcus's husband was a loose end witness, Justine would not stop snooping around the house, James had been in the house and reported it, and then Archer and Justine enter the house again).

Gladys did not take the children to turn them into a mob to terrorize the town, though. She also does not seem to be actually feeding off of them (or Alex's parents). She is feeding off the conflict and turmoil controlling them causes.

The weaponizing is not turning them into "guns", but in using them to create the conflict that she feeds on.

I will say that is one place I would have liked to have seen another step or two. I suppose it wasn't really necessary, but I would have liked to have seen Archer "triangulate" a few more points to pin down the location.

At one point I would have questioned why the police wouldn't have done this already, but I believe Gladys had some mild control/sway over the police and was keeping the investigation stalled. (Remember, she is with Alex when they show him being questioned in the very beginning!)

I'm not sure about that (feeding off the conflict). I don't see enough evidence to support that. She only turned to the children after being disappointed that feeding from Alex's parents wasn't enough for her. And controlling the parents didn't seem to cause any conflict initially, other than in Alex. I don't think she was necessarily literally feeding from the people she controlled, like sucking their blood or whatever. But somehow magically draining their life force to replenish hers.

But she DOES turn them into weapons

If the conflict angle is your interpretation, that's as valid as any. I think most people interpreted it as her siphoning life force from victims directly. I personally took the gun image to just be how some form of anxiety manifested in that character's dream.

Here is The Tab's paraphrasing of Cregger's intentions regarding Gladys:

He said he mainly used the 217 as a reference from the shining novel and it grew from there, but I'm pretty sure the 217 came from other thoughts as well. I do hope you're right about the gun image - guess we'll never know for sure.

I initially took it as feeding off of their lifeforce as well. It wasn't until my second viewing (and some conversations/critiques in between), that I came to this view.

The gun imagery actually points more to this reading, as illustrated by the bold part of your comment. Yes, a gun is a weapon, but Cregger said he is not commenting directly on school shootings, he was commenting on trauma. Yes, people are used as weapons, but it isn't about the violence they inflict, it is about the trauma. She isn't sending the kids out at night to kill people or drag more people back to her lair, she is holding them hostage so the community cannot heal and remains traumatized in crisis. When there is direct violence, it is only a last resort when somebody starts to get too close to finding out what is happening.

What do you think the bully 'started'? That he was a bully is functionally irrelevant to the plot as I followed it.
Definitely.

The bullying act was accompanied by the teacher calling him out by name, a name we knew from his father. So it wasn't a reveal.

I would agree the bully aspect may have made Matthew a little less resistant to the idea, but I didn't see it a conscious revenge motivation.

Bumping this now that Amy Madigan is apparently the Oscar front-runner in Supporting Actress. I loved the film but am still baffled that this is the Oscar it will probably win. I mean she was fine as Gladys, but it's more of a shock of makeup than any revelation of a performance to me. I guess Ruth Gordon once won the same Oscar for a similar role. Still it just felt a little basic and two dimensional for my taste.
What did you guys think? I don't see a ton of praise for Madigan's performance in this thread.

I think it's a bit early to call a probable win, before she is even nominated.

Probable is overstating it. But she is now the front-runner.

I rewatched this and thought it held up well even knowing what was going to happen.

Madigan was fine. I don’t pay close attention to the Oscars so I don’t feel strongly that she should or shouldn’t win. But I’m sure I’ve seen more memorable performances this year.

It must be a rough years for supporting actress if Madigan and Teyana Taylor are leading the pack. As much as I didn’t think Madigan’s performance was all that great, it was far more memorable than Taylor’s.

I have no beef with Madigan, it's a unique role where she plays that character in different ways and she does a lot with the time she has. The table scene with Alex is what's getting her on these lists. Now, the actresses from Sentimental Value, those would be my preferred choices but any win for horror is a win for me, a genre that always gets the shaft.