WEAPONS Explained (In Chronological Order!)

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Spoilers ahead for Weapons. What's the scariest thing you can picture if you were to look out your window at night?

[00:00:06]If you answered, "A bunch of kids doing the Naruto run," you'd be right. That's the premise of Weapons. A class of 18 elementary school kids goes missing because one night at 21:17 a.m., they all inexplicably wake up and run out of their houses, disappearing into the darkness. This is Zack Kger's second feature after his debut Barbarian. I was a big fan of that movie. But in Weapons, Kger gets even more creative with a story that's deeply personal while exploring multiple points of view. It's a mystery thriller, yes, horror, but to a lesser degree than I expected. And it's funny. No surprise given Kger has a background in comedy. He was one of the founding members of the whitest Kids You Know comedy troop. The story of weapons unfolds nonlinearly. It'll go through some events, then double back to retell them from another character's perspective. Each time, we fill in more blanks and slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to these kids. This structure does a couple of things. It makes for a more interesting viewing experience because it preserves mystery.

[00:01:12]If the story went in order, we'd know most of the answers at the beginning.

[00:01:16]The nonlinear structure also aligns us with each character's point of view. It ensures we rarely know more than they do. If you pay attention to this aspect, you'll see the order of character segments was consistently chosen with this idea in mind. For example, Justine is suddenly attacked by Marcus, the school principal. She and Archer are shocked. So are we. To preserve that shock, Marcus' POV had to be told after hers and Archers. Otherwise, we'd know he was coming. So, sometimes the order is used to preserve surprise, and other times it's used to create a dark cloud over a character because when we go to Marcus' segment, we know it'll end with him doing the wideeyed running trying to kill someone thing. I love how replaying events doesn't just fill in the blanks, but also reorients what we already saw.

[00:02:07]Justine is disappointed when Paul only orders a Coke and no alcohol. that takes on new meaning when later we find out he's in recovery or after Paul and Justine sleep together and later we find out he's married and trying for a baby.

[00:02:21]Out of order is the proper way to view this movie. But once you've had the pure experience, join me in doing what I do best, putting things in chronological order. And it's a tall order because even Kger himself couldn't do it.

[00:02:34]>> I did try and do a calendar where I was trying to exactly pinpoint like how these events coincided and it's impossible. They don't. You can justify it the way this Cinema Blend interviewer did.

[00:02:44]>> Well, I mean, is it Would Could you say it is just from their personal perspective?

[00:02:48]>> Yeah, exactly. They're unreliable narrators, you know. It's all Yeah.

[00:02:51]subjective.

[00:02:52]>> Yeah, totally. Yeah. Unreliable narrators. It's on purpose. In this video, we're going to make it fit kind of. Kger is right. I started putting spreadsheets and diagrams together, and there are hidden time skips where days go by without you realizing it. And it is near impossible to fit everything logically on a day-by-day schedule. I think it's no mistake that when we see Alex in class, he's doing a worksheet labeled, "What time is it?" I could go into all the details of how this timeline doesn't fit, but honestly, I started writing that version of this video until I realized it would basically be me at a chalkboard, and it's not that interesting. In terms of the general order of events, you can mostly make sense of it. And once we wrapped our heads around the actual plot, we'll go into the deeper meaning of it all to answer the question, what is weapons really about? The movie is broken into six segments in the following order. Justine, Archer, Paul, James, Marcus, and Alex. About half of the final segment, Alex, takes place chronologically earliest, so that's where we'll begin. It also spoils the entire movie, so consider this your final spoiler warning. It all started about a month ago. Alex Lily is in class learning about parasites, something very apppropo, because that night his sick aunt Glattis arrives. It's a minor complaint, but I'm not a fan of this trope where in the school the teacher happens to be talking about the thing that is super relevant to what the main character is going through. It often feels like a cheat code for explaining the movie's theme. Normally, I wouldn't mention this. It just stood out in this movie because otherwise it feels so grounded and atypical. Something similar happens later when Marcus and his husband are watching TV. It's a nature program about cortiseps and zombie ants, especially well known now as the basis for the apocalypse in Last of Us. It's based on a realworld phenomenon where a certain type of fungal spore drills into an ant's exoskeleton and feeds on its insides. The weirdest part is that at a certain point, it actually affects the ant's behavior. It causes it to ignore its colony's pheromone trail and instead climb up a twig or stem, lock on with its jaw, and die. A few days later, a stock shoots out the ant's head, releasing spores and starting the whole process over again. Effectively, the fungus turns the ant controlled zombie.

[00:05:21]Quite relevant to this movie, as we'll soon see. The next morning, Alex finds his parents catatonic at the dining table. It's quickly obvious that this is Glattis's doing. It's revealed that Glattis is something like a witch. She's old, sick, and figures she can extend her life by draining some life force, you could call it, from Alex's parents.

[00:05:42]Throughout the movie, those parents look more and more like zombies. Clearly, this isn't the first time she's unnaturally extended her lifespan because she's quite old. How old? We get some hint at this when she speaks with the school principal, Marcus. She tries to cover for the fact that Alex's parents are indisposed and comes up with the excuse that they're sick.

[00:06:04]Specifically, they have consumption.

[00:06:06]>> Just a touch of consumption.

[00:06:08]>> Consumption is a term for tuberculosis that hasn't been used since the 1800s.

[00:06:13]Glattis makes it clear to Alex he is not to tell anyone about the state of his parents. He is to go to school every day and act like all is normal. When he hesitates, she shows him what she can do to punish disobedience. She makes his parents stab themselves in the face repeatedly with forks. That's how you know Kger is a genius. Because if any one of us were writing this scene, those parents would have stabbed themselves in the hand with a knife or started banging their head against the table. But Kger comes up with something so bizarre and unsettling for a child to see. Something about a fork, the fact that it leaves so many little holes with each stab, it's just more visceral and gross than a knife. Anyway, how does Glattis control people? When Glattis moved in, she brought with her a strange tree. To control someone, she has to take one of their belongings and wrap it around a twig. Add in some of her blood, ring a special bell, and they go into essentially a trance. She can also turn that person into an assassin by wrapping a target's hair around that twig and snapping it. That sends the assassin at their target like a heat-seeking missile. They only stop when she drops the twig into a bowl of water. None of this is explained. We just watch it happen. Matter of fact, the casual way Glattis performs these actions, combined with the production design of the weird tree, sells the magic as something that fits in a grounded world and as something she is well practiced in.

[00:07:42]After making Alex's parents stab themselves in the face a bunch, she assures Alex she can do worse. make them hurt themselves, each other, even eat each other. That ends any thoughts of disobedience, at least for a while. For some time, Alex follows Glattis's orders to take care of his parents, feeding them soup every day. Soon, another order. Just their life force isn't enough. Glattis needs more younger life.

[00:08:09]She asks Alex to bring home a personal effect from each of his classmates. He does. And that night, Glattis rips up their name tags and drops them into some sort of stew from the tree. She spits into it, introduces a flame, and rings the bell at 2:17 a.m. It works. All 17 of Alex's classmates leave their beds and run straight to the house where Glattis locks them in the basement. Like Alex's parents, they're essentially catatonic, and he feeds them soup every day. He even takes care of Matthew, the kid who usually bullies him. This is a good time to mention Amy Madigan as Glattis, and Carrie Christopher as Alex.

[00:08:49]They play off each other so well. Her as someone who can say the most threatening thing in a voice with feigned warmth, and him as the boy who has retreated into quiet resignation. When no one except Alex shows up for class the next day, the school is closed and an investigation begins. Alex is questioned thoroughly. He claims to know nothing because he knows the consequences of failing Glattis. And she's promised once she gets better, she'll leave. So, Alex does his best. She covers up for the state of his father by claiming he recently had a stroke. And they do get through the investigation unscathed.

[00:09:27]After about 30 days, the school is set to be reopened. Though the town and the parents of the missing kids still want answers, especially Archer. Finding Matthew has become his singular obsession, it has him distracted from his wife, from his work and construction. He even ordered the wrong paint, red paint, which he puts in the back of his truck to return personally.

[00:09:50]That night is the big town meeting before the school's reopening. Archer is the loudest one there, demanding answers. Specifically, he wants answers from the teacher whose class went missing, Justine. From Justine's perspective, especially, Archer is presented as bullheaded. But thanks in part to Josh Brolan's performance. You can't hate him. At least I can't. It's easy to feel powerless in the face of tragedy. Even more so in a horror movie when mysterious supernatural forces are at play. So, it's really satisfying to watch someone just charge through the madness like a bull. He reminds me of the characters written by S. Craig Zer in Brawl Sellblock 99 or Bone Tomahawk.

[00:10:31]They're so interesting because they're strong and follow their principles to a tea. Even in the face of something awful and impenetrable, they move through the stories like a bulldozer. But Brolan will also show some vulnerability in the movie. Julia Garner is great, too, as Justine. Other than the narrator, she's our introduction to the movie. She plays a complex character who is strong in some ways, facing a town that wants to demonize her, but also flawed. She retreats to alcohol, even pushing it on someone she likely knows is in recovery.

[00:11:03]She sleeps with a married man. Her other flaw, she cares too much is a nice way to put it. Another way is that her only emotional outlet and all of her purpose comes from one place, her class. And that causes her to get too close. She'll hug a student, give a student a ride home. Her heart is in the right place, but the principal has advised those are inappropriate actions. She's a teacher, not a parent. It's a lot to ask and Garner delivers. After the meeting, Archer quietly follows Justine to the liquor store to her house. That night, someone knocks on her door aggressively and leaves witch written on her car. We don't see it happen, but it's red paint.

[00:11:44]Like the paint Archer put in the back of his truck, telling us he was likely behind this evening's harassment.

[00:11:51]Returning home, he too is harassed by a nightmare. He's standing in his son's bedroom at 2:17 a.m. He sees himself in bed, and he sees Matthew running out the front door. He follows him across the yard through the trees until he's back where he started, staring at his own house. Matthew runs back through the front door. Above the house, floating, is a giant assault rifle with a digital clock embedded showing 217 a.m. Inside the house, Archer finds Matthew in bed, staring wideeyed. Archer begs and pleads. Matthew, where are you? Where did you go? And he apologizes. He's sorry he wasn't able to say it. He wanted to say it so many times. He wants to say it all the time because he feels it all the time. When he finally says it, "I love you so much." His son is suddenly replaced by a grinning Glattis, caked as always in too much makeup. This isn't the only nightmare we'll see, and not the only time Glattis will cameo in someone else's mind. No explanation is given, but I imagine it's simply the result of close proximity to a practicing witch. Perhaps it emanates dark energy that causes hallucinations and nightmares. Also, what's the deal with the giant floating gun? Well, Variety asked Kger that very question.

[00:13:11]Here's what he said. I don't know. It's a very important moment for me in this movie. And to be frank with you, I think what I love about it so much is that I don't understand it. I have a few different ideas of what it might be there for, but I don't have the right answer. I like the idea that everyone is probably going to have their own kind of interaction or their own relationship with that scene. Whether they don't give a [ __ ] about it and it's boring or whether they think it's some sort of political statement or whether they think it's just cool, I don't really care. It's not up to me. I just like that it's there. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about it because it almost feels like too clean a metaphor.

[00:13:51]Glattis literally turns people into weapons in this movie. She specifically added Matthew to her arsenal at 217 a.m.

[00:13:59]So floating above Matthew's house is a giant weapon with 217 a.m. on it. On the one hand, it's such a bizarre, striking image, and that's cool. On the other hand, dreams don't usually contain such clear and coherent metaphors. Though, Archer does seem like a pretty literal-minded person, so for him, maybe dreams are that straightforward. But it does lead to my absolute favorite moment in the movie. Archer wakes up and >> WHAT THE [ __ ] >> The appropriate reaction when a bulldozer meets an inexplicable supernatural force. That morning, James, who lives in a tent in the woods, runs out of drugs. He needs more, and for that, he needs money. Begging on the phone gets him nowhere, and neither does the pawn shop. Justine's day isn't going much better. The parents are so upset with her. There's no way the principal Marcus can let her keep working. For now, she's better off on leave. At the police station, where she talks to a cop about her vandalized car, where Archer wrote, which she spots Paul, another cop who happens to be her ex-boyfriend. He just got off the phone with his wife who is ovulating this Friday so they can hit the target this month. On patrol, he spots James breaking into a building. He chases him down and places him under arrest. Paul asks if James has anything sharp in his pocket and he says no. Of course, even when they say no, you still don't just jam your finger. And he's jamming his fingers into his pocket. Ow.

[00:15:29]After getting pricricked by the needle, Paul reflexively punches James in the head. Oh crap, that was captured on his dash cam. Once James wakes up, Paul makes it clear. I screwed up. You screwed up. I'm going to uncuff you.

[00:15:43]Then let's both go our separate ways.

[00:15:45]and I never want to see you again. I loved Alden Arin Reich in this role. If Brolan plays a bulldozer, he plays like a Roomba that keeps bumping into walls.

[00:15:56]He's in a state of near panic the moment we meet him, awkwardly waving at the girl he used to date. Only later do we learn that was right after the call with his wife, currently away on a business trip. His panic ratchets up as in his Roombaike manner, he bumps into personal and professional walls, sometimes both at the same time. His wife he's cheating on is the police captain's daughter. If he reminds you of John C. Riley's cop character who lost his gun in Magnolia, that's no mistake. Kger took inspiration from that movie in terms of scale and tone. It also followed multiple protagonists, though it went back and forth. unlike weapons which gives each character one segment and moves on. More specifically, he took inspiration from the John C. Riley character for Paul and his mustache. Now, in terms of the timeline, if you watched the movie recently, you might recall that in the James segment, he wakes up after Paul's punch, then breaks into Alex's house.

[00:16:54]So, why isn't my recap going there now?

[00:16:56]I think this is one of those hidden time skips because after the break-in, he goes to the pawn shop, then back to the police where Paul spots him. Following Paul's story, that just definitely doesn't happen yet. Not for at least a couple days. Don't make me get my diagram out. After his run-in punchin with James, Paul returns to the station and tells the captain what happened.

[00:17:19]Bottom line, that footage will sit on a drive until it's erased in about a month. Unless James comes in to file a report, then he's in big trouble. If that captain looks familiar, by the way, for me, that was thanks to 2018's Halloween, where he played Lorie Strode's son-in-law.

[00:17:37]>> Oh man, I got peanut butter on my penis.

[00:17:40]>> And if he sounds familiar, that might be because he took over as Dale Gribble in the New King of the Hill. He does a great job, too. Earlier, Archer meets with him to grill him on the case, and he projects such professionalism and credibility, enough to convince you the police really are doing everything they can. After James, Paul is nervous and vulnerable. Perfect time for a text from his ex. He meets Justine for a drink.

[00:18:06]One thing leads to another, yada yada.

[00:18:08]When he returns home the next morning to find his wife back early from the business trip, she reads him like a book.

[00:18:14]>> Where have you been? I was uh I was out.

[00:18:18]>> Where?

[00:18:20]Paul, you piece of [ __ ] >> If only Paul were as good an actor as Alden Aaron Reich. Meanwhile, Justine and Archer in their own separate ways put on their investigator hats. Archer got the idea to trace the path his kid ran, assuming he ran in a straight line.

[00:18:38]If only he could get his hands on other parents' footage, he could trace the paths their kids ran and see where they intersect. Maybe he could pinpoint the destination. Though the first mom, he asks gives him the cold shoulder.

[00:18:51]Justine has slightly better luck. She decides to follow Alex. She tries talking to him, but gets the cold shoulder. Looking at his house, though, there's clearly something wrong. The windows are covered in newspapers, and his parents are sitting at the couch, oddly still. She calls Marcus to tell him what she saw. He's quite upset at how she's crossed the line, but she reminds him if there are concerns, he is obligated to check and report to CPS if necessary. So, he schedules a meeting.

[00:19:22]After that, Justine heads back to the liquor store where Paul's wife, Donna, assaults her. And that night, Justine is assaulted again, but this time by her own mind, a nightmare. She sees Alex in the classroom smiling with clown makeup on, then wakes up to Glattis on her ceiling. To me, that dream is just the truth seeping out. Alex is under Glattis's control. That's why in her nightmare, he's wearing the sort of makeup you imagine he'd find in her purse. Now, he isn't supernaturally under her control like his parents, but he is a child being manipulated and threatened by a witch. Soon, it's time for that meeting. Marcus is expecting Alex's parents to come in, but instead Glattis shows up. This is when the consumption conversation happens. She insists everything is fine, and he insists on a face tof face with Alex's legal guardians, his parents. This is where Glattis is first introduced in the movie. She's an interesting character.

[00:20:23]They decided to work against the conventional idea of a witch, making her the picture of the chipper auntie, a brightly colored woman from Miami.

[00:20:32]Truly, her first introduction is as a colorful blur behind the glass as she walks into Marcus's office. In makeup, they actually narrowed her irises and made her teeth look smaller as a couple of other subtle ways of making her look off. Meanwhile, Archer and Justine separately continue their investigations. After failing with the wife, Archer tries the husband. Hey, Justin Long. Continuing his streak of surprise appearances in Zack Kger movies, crossing my fingers for Resident Evil. Long agrees to share their daughter's footage, adding one more line to his map, giving Archer a general idea where the lines intersect. How have the cops not tried this? It's honestly dereliction of duty. Too bad Dale Gribble isn't on the case. He would have had Alex's house bugged by now. He probably would have somehow involved actual bugs, too. Justine goes back to Alex's house and stakes it out. She falls asleep and that night, Alex's mom comes out in a trance and cuts off a lock of Justine's hair. Probably the scariest part of the movie for me, at least in a traditional horror movie sense. If you watch the movie in the nonlinear way it's presented, you have no idea what's happening in that house yet. So, it's really weird when this woman walks out with her arm up. You think maybe there's a knife in her hand and Justine is very vulnerable because she's asleep. At least the doors are locked, right? Nope. You don't see it because the camera is on Justine and the driver's side door, but you hear it. The passenger door opens. The sound of that door opening might be the loudest my theater got, at least until the end of the movie. Meanwhile, James still needs drug money, and soon he looks into the perfect opportunity for some. He spots a house that makes for a nice target, a house that happens to belong to the Lily family, Alex's house. He figures no one is home thanks to the newspapers piling up outside. And this is probably the second scariest scene to me. He sneaks in through a window into a room that looks like the work of a hoarder. It seems no one is home, so stealing stuff around the house is easy, including what the hell console is that? It's got like three cartridge slots. It appears to be a variant of the Retron 3 HD, a modern third-party console capable of playing Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis games, or as I call it, an affront to nature. like the three consoles fell into that cave in the movie together and combined into a bizarre hybrid. As he goes for the Willow DVD, he spots Alex's parents in the TV's reflection, still just sitting on the couch staring wideeyed.

[00:23:14]>> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Um, >> when he notices they're completely nonresponsive, he gets back to stealing until he gets curious about the basement. And down there he finds a bunch of kids just standing there until they suddenly turn to look at him. He scrambles. The parents stand up and walk toward him. He rushes out of the house and to the pawn shop to sell his illgotten goods. That's when he notices the $50,000 reward sign for the missing kids. I love the delayed realization.

[00:23:44]He's staring at the poster. The camera moves past the part which says $50,000, then swoops back up and his jaw drops.

[00:23:53]In the casual way, he tells the cops what he knows.

[00:23:56]>> I'm calling about the $50,000 reward for information about the missing kids cuz I know where they are. I mean, I'm pretty sure all of them I don't look like a bunch of them. They're all standing in the basement of this house just like standing there.

[00:24:04]>> Absolutely perfect delivery. He heads to the police station and oops, Paul told him to stay away. Fearing that James is there to report his assault, he chases him. WHAT DID I TELL YOU? WHAT DID I [ __ ] >> Also hilarious because we see this moment twice in the Paul segment. James showing up feels like it happens shortly after the assault. So, it isn't crazy to think he's there to file a report.

[00:24:30]Paul's reaction kind of makes sense, but in the James segment, so much has happened since then, Paul seems like a total nut job.

[00:24:38]>> It's funny and does a great job showing how two people's subjective experience of the same moment can differ. Chased by Paul, James runs into the woods where he sees Glattis waving at him. Creeped out, he retreats to his tent. A shadow approaches. He grabs a handful of needles and as that shadow opens the tent, plunges those needles into its face, and it's Paul. He is not having a good week. By the way, why does James see Glattis in the woods? Honestly, it feels like there's a degree of this movie trying to be scarier than it is.

[00:25:12]What I mean is that given the story, the witch who kidnaps these children, that is a scary idea, but the actual plot investigating their disappearance, how do you make that scary? The movie cheats a little. Inexplicable nightmares, hallucinations in the woods, even when James was in the house, why did the kids suddenly turn to stare at him? Why did the parents stand up and walk toward him? You can invent reasoning like dark psychic energy emanating from the witch and you're not questioning all of it when it happens because you don't know it's a witch until the end. But it's the sort of thing that threw me a little on repeat viewings. James explains himself and Paul tosses him in the back of his cruiser. They head to the house where James claims he saw the kids. Paul heads into that house and doesn't come back.

[00:26:00]Not until nightfall when he's clearly under Glattis's trance. He grabs James and drags him into the house, adding another weapon to her arsenal. Come Saturday, Marcus is hanging out at home with his husband, Terry, having a bunch of hot dogs. Likely a reference to the hot dog Timmy sketch from the whitest kids, you know, where a doctor is asking how many hot dogs a day his patient eats.

[00:26:25]>> Just about how many hot dogs do you eat a day?

[00:26:31]>> How many hot dogs? Jeez, I don't know. I mean, you know, some days I could eat a couple and some days I don't eat any.

[00:26:39]>> He hems and haws until eventually he answers >> on a whole week. Average per day would be something like, I don't know, seven.

[00:26:50]>> Seven hot dogs.

[00:26:52]>> And seven is precisely the number of hot dogs served on the tray and weapons.

[00:26:57]That sketch starred Trevor Moore as the doctor. He was Kger's close friend and collaborator who tragically passed away in 2021. Part of the way Kger dealt with his grief was by writing this movie. And a lot of that emotion made its way in.

[00:27:13]Marcus and Terry's afternoon is interrupted when Glattis shows up. She takes advantage of their kindness, acting like she's on the verge of collapse and needs help, but she's come with a twig. She wraps one of Marcus' ribbons around it. She could be seen eyeing those ribbons earlier in his office. She cuts off a lock of Terry's hair, draws some of her blood, and snaps the twig in brutal fashion by repeatedly banging his own head against Terry's.

[00:27:40]Marcus kills his husband. Then she gives him a new target, Justine. She's been snooping around and Glattus can't have that. That's why she sent Alex's mom to get her hair earlier. With that hair, she sends Marcus after her. He charges across town. He isn't the only one.

[00:27:58]Archer is also driving along, following the path of those intersecting lines, hoping for a clue as to where his son ran to. Given how cavalier and committed Archer is, it is kind of weird he hasn't had the same idea as Justine to follow Alex, but whatever. And speaking of Justine, he spots her getting gas and confronts her. While they have a heated discussion, Marcus finds his target.

[00:28:24]Now, as much as Archer has an issue with Justine, he isn't going to let the school principal murder her. He helps defend him off, chases him down in his car, and watches when another car crashes into Marcus and basically rips him in half. One of the most striking images in the movie are those bulging eyes people get when they're turned into assassins by Glattis. The look was achieved through CGI. Prosthetics get tougher when you're dealing with sensitive areas like the eyes. Also, this movie doesn't have a lot of violence, but when it does, it gets quite gory, and because there isn't a lot of it, the occasional moments of gore really stand out, especially in a world that feels so grounded. Kger and the production designers talked about the importance of making the world feel real, down to small details like making sure rooms and houses aren't too clean or organized. On the other hand, there are touches of surrealism, too. The obvious ones, dreams and hallucinations, but less obvious hallways that are slightly too long and have a few too many doors. Things like that always remind me of The Shining, where it turns out the hotel is structurally impossible with things like windows and doors that go nowhere. Later at the hospital, Justine and Archer talk. They finally realize they're on the same side. He shows her where the lines intersect on the map and she recognizes that's where Alex lives. When Alex gets home from school, he's surprised to see a cop car outside. And yes, that makes no sense.

[00:29:58]Remember, the car arrived when it was light out and was there overnight. So, how did Alex not see Paul, James, or the car on his way out of the house in the morning? Anyway, this is when all the story lines collide. Alex is home. Paul and James are there in Glattis's thr and Justine and Archer have come to stake the place out. Inside, Glattis tells Alex to pack his things. We're leaving tomorrow. With the cops around, there's too much heat. She warns him not to step over the salt. She has his parents standing in front of her door behind a line of salt, which acts as a supernatural trip wire. Step over it and they'll kill you. Outside, Justine and Archer watch. They see the door open and Paul steps out, waving for them to come in. They do. Paul again hypnotically waves Justine over, causing her to step over a line of salt. James and Paul attack. Archer does a lot of punching with James, and Justine does some peeling with Paul until she's left no choice but to take his gun and shoot him in the head. It is hilarious watching Archer knock James over again and again while he keeps getting back up and screaming. And every time you think he stopped, he just gets back up. That's put to a stop when Justine puts a bullet in James head, too. In the basement, Archer finds the kids, all nonresponsive. Annie finds Glattis hiding down there. She quickly turns Archer into a weapon and sends him after Justine. Upstairs, Alex steps over the salt line, sending his parents into kill mode. They chase him while he takes refuge in Glattis's room. Finally, he takes matters into his own hands by taking a thorny twig into his hands, the one still tied to the children. He bleeds onto the twig, then grabs a strand of Glattis's hair from the inside of her wig. Then, the part where my fear went absolutely nuts, he snaps the twig.

[00:31:58]Oh my god.

[00:31:59]>> Alex just gave all the kids one singular target, Glattis. She runs as best she can, but soon enough they catch up and literally rip her limb from limb. To pull off the scene, they fabricated a cable mechanized Glattis body, which the kids could paw at until they release the cables, allowing the body to come apart.

[00:32:19]It is incredibly satisfying to watch that smug witch lose at the hands of the very children she kidnapped. Once Glattus is dead, everyone is freed of her control, including Archer, before he could finish choking out Justine.

[00:32:35]Unfortunately, those who have been under her control for a while, including the kids and Alex's parents, aren't so quick to recover. They're all still barely responsive. Though, there's clearly still something there. Because when Archer calls out his son's name, the boy does turn to look at him. So clearly he recognized his name. The movie opened with a narrator, a kid telling the crazy story of what happened in her town a couple of years ago. She closes the movie too, saying, "Alex's parents are still being fed soup somewhere, but not by him. He moved to another town and lives with a different aunt. I heard that one is a nice lady. All of the kids from his class got reunited with their parents. Some of them even started talking again this year. If that ending seems oddly upbeat for Kger, you're correct. His original intended ending was to simply cut to black on Matthew's blank stare with no voice over. As the script puts it, push in on a bloodcovered Matthew pressed against his father's neck. His eyes are open, but they are vacant, empty. The end.

[00:33:43]Shockingly, test audiences did not respond well to that ending, so they added the voice over to make it slightly more optimistic. So, what does it all mean? Kger has actually been pretty open and honest about what it means to him.

[00:33:58]Partly, it was a response to his grief, and you can see how he explores the feeling from multiple perspectives.

[00:34:05]Archer responds to grief with anger, and he wants to point that anger at someone tangible. So, Justine becomes his target. That anger is blinding and counterproductive. He doesn't see that Justine wants the same thing as him, the same thing most grieving people want.

[00:34:21]Answers only when they work together do they actually start to find some.

[00:34:26]Justine responds to grief through vice alcohol. And we get the idea it's an old habit. You have a tendency to get a little woe is me. And one thing I know has never helped is this.

[00:34:39]>> What is this? What?

[00:34:40]>> A lonely drinking pity party.

[00:34:43]>> She drowns herself in alcohol and Paul.

[00:34:46]On a broader scale, the movie looks not only at individual grief, but the grief of a town. How do people as a group respond to tragedy? There's the demand for answers and their failure to find them. The failure of the systems and institutions meant to protect those children even if their hearts are in the right place. like the principal Marcus played to perfection by Benedict Wong.

[00:35:08]He is clearly very caring and well-intentioned. But it is a failure that Alex can walk into school every day, clearly from a home where something is very wrong and no one notices. It's a problem that the police gave up after one investigation of the home when it's obvious Alex needs a second visit. And a simple glance at the house would tell you something is wrong, like the newspapers piling up in their driveway and the newspapers lining their windows.

[00:35:36]There's Paul dealing with personal issues who nearly scares off James, the only witness that has seen the children where Kger has said the movie is most autobiographical is in the Alex segment.

[00:35:48]Here's what he told the Hollywood Reporter. The final chapter of this movie with Alex and the parents, that's autobiographical. I'm an alcoholic. I'm sober 10 years. My father died of cerosis. Living in a house with an alcoholic parent. The inversion of the family dynamic that happens. The idea that this foreign entity comes into your home and it changes your parent and you have to deal with this new behavioral pattern that you don't understand and don't have the equipment to deal with.

[00:36:19]It's easy to see how that's reflected in the story. Drugs or alcohol were the foreign entity in Kger's life, while Glattis is the foreign entity in this story. In real life, those foreign entities can turn a parent into a zombie. The house can go into disarray, as it does with Glattis's arrival, which actually kind of bugged me in the movie.

[00:36:40]Why would Glattis allow the house to become such a disaster when that risks drawing attention? This is a spot where it feels a little like theme and metaphor was prioritized over the reality of the story. And when your house is invaded by that foreign entity and things are falling apart. As a kid, you do your best to go to school and act like everything is okay. A well-meaning teacher like Justine might try to reach out, but an equally well-meaning Marcus might get in the way to remind that teacher of boundaries. Kger has said the movie is a thrill ride, but to him it's also a diary entry. On the iTunes extras, he says, "Weapons is two moments of pain and grief in my life in dialogue with each other." And I think you can feel those two forces in the movie. Alex is the pain of living with parents taken by a foreign entity or substance. The missing children introduce the grief. In some ways, they're different ideas, but they also speak to the way pain and tragedy emanate. Like Glattis's witch energy infecting the town with nightmares and hallucinations, Alex is not the only one who suffers. Long-term, whatever ending you choose, the one with the kernel of hope or Kger's original ending, the point remains. The demons stick around. You grow up and leave your parents' home, but the trauma of that upbringing stays with you, even with the hopeful voiceover. only some of the kids just started talking two years after the event. Clearly, the trauma and damage remains. I do also think there's a degree of wish fulfillment in the finale, a bit of catharsis to help anyone who can relate to the pain or grief. Archer, the grieving father, wishes there was some person he could blame, someone his wrath could be pointed at. In the real world, more often than not, there isn't. And even if there is, hurting them usually doesn't solve anything. But in Weapons, there is a witch. You can rip her to pieces, and that does genuinely solve some problems, which is part of what makes Weapons such a satisfying ride. It starts with a great mystery, one that's unique in its hook. This isn't a kid went missing, or even two kids went missing. It's an entire class at an oddly specific time.

[00:38:56]It creates that sense of urgency. I have to keep watching and see how they explain all this. The mystery pulls you in and then you meet the characters.

[00:39:05]Each is complex and interesting in their own way. Each has their own journey dealing with that tragedy. You can't look away from them either. At any given point, the movie has your attention as it develops these characters and puts them on dangerous tensionfilled journeys while simultaneously drawing you further into the mystery. Often movies keep your attention either by stoking your curiosity so you want to know what happens next or by investing you in the characters so you care and worry about what will happen to them. Weapons successfully fired on both cylinders often at the same time. And that's step one, getting your attention and keeping it. Beyond that, the movie is also unique in its visual landscape. Just look at the strange way Glattis' weapons run with arms stretched out and bulging eyes, but also unique in its fundamental structure. a structure that is not just a gimmick because the segmentation between characters puts you in their subjective point of view allows Kger to pace out the mystery and reveals and feeds into the broader theme of how a town responds to tragedy at both the macro and micro level as a town and as people living in a town. Sometimes I felt like it was trying a tad hard to be scary in a way that didn't entirely flow logically from the premise, as though the movie was uncomfortable being just a mystery thriller with horror elements rather than a full-fledged horror. But honestly, that's a nitpick and doesn't take away from how special the movie is to me. In that Hollywood Reporter interview, Kger goes on to say, "I don't care if this stuff comes through. The alcoholic metaphor is not important to me. I hope people have fun. Honestly, it's not really my business what people make of the movie. I have nothing to say about it because the movie should speak for itself. And if I have to comment on what people should get from it, then I have failed as a filmmaker. Well, I'm allowed to speak for the movie, right?

[00:41:04]Because I'm not the filmmaker. Sorry, Kger. Please don't be mad at me.