This article contains spoilers for Weapons and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Zach Cregger you sonuvabitch, you’ve done did it again and given horror fans another banger with Weapons. This film is so goated, it’s rumoured Jordan Peele cut ties with his managers after they lost the bidding war to produce the film. So it makes sense only one week after of being released they’re already talking about making a prequel on the film’s villain, Gladys.
What is the movie Weapons about?
17 kids from Ms. Gandy’s class disappeared at 2:17am (2 people leftover, 17 missing… I see you Zachery 👀). The film pulls out some Christopher Nolan-esque storytelling with its non-linear narrative, bouncing from the perspectives of Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich), James (Austin Abrams), Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong), and finally Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher).
The ending of Weapons, explained
Everything is revealed when the film gives us the perspective of Alex, the only child from Ms. Gandy’s class who didn’t disappear. Days prior the disappearance, Alex’s mother is tidying the house for the arrival of her estranged sister, Aunt Gladys, who is feeling unwell and needing to stay with them. Alex peeps into Gladys’ room, first seeing a potted tree then Gladys herself lying in bed, who reminded me of the mother from the CHOCOLATEEEE SpongeBob episode.
Upon Aunt Gladys’ arrival, things go to shit. Alex doesn’t get picked up from school, so he walks home only to be greeted with his parents sat at the dining table stuck in a trance. Alex tries breaking them out of the trance with a splash of water but to no avail. Later on, Gladys sits Alex down and reveals her witchery: she rubs her blood on a twig wrapped with the hair of Alex’s mother and father, then after snapping the twig, both parents start nonchalantly stabbing their faces with forks repeatedly. Gladys gets them to stop, and threatens to bring further harm to Alex’s parents should he tell anyone about her.
Aunty Gladys is a bitch witch?
Earlier in the film, Archer, one of the fathers of missing children, vandalised Ms. Gandy’s car with the words “WITCH”. In my professional opinion (I did film school for one year), this was Cregger straight up giving us the answer in the beginning. Throughout the film there is also a motif of parasites, from a list of parasites being written on the classroom whiteboard during Justine’s nightmare sequence, to Marcus and his husband, Terry (Clayton Farris), watching a documentary on Cordyceps.
With Alex’s parents stuck in a trance, Gladys informs Alex he’ll need to feed them soup. Alex begins getting into a routine of going to school, buying soup at the grocers, spoon-feeding his parents, then repeating it. It’s morbid. However, Alex’s parents weren’t enough for Gladys to feed on, so she tells Alex she’ll go back to her home if Alex brings a possession of every student in his class to make her feel better.
The next day at school, Alex dips out of PE class (he’s just like me fr) to steal the tray nameplates of his classmates. Ms. Gandy nearly catches him but she’s too focused on being a parental figure to realise all the nameplates are missing. Later that night at 2:17am, Gladys performs a spell using the nameplates, causing all the children to run to Alex’s home and into the basement, where they have been standing comatosely for a month (also being fed soup by Alex).
Side note: Alex is better than me because I would’ve let my bully starve than spoon-feed them soup; fuck you Matthew.
In present day, Ms. Gandy pressures Marcus, who is the school principal, to speak with Alex’s parents. Instead, Gladys shows up and obviously reaffirms everything is a-okay while sneakily stealing Marcus’ reading achievement ribbons. Afterward, Gladys rocks up to Marcus’ residence where he and his husband were enjoying a whole lotta hot dogs while watching the Cordyceps documentary. Afraid Marcus will contact the authorities, Gladys performs her ritual once again: rubbing her blood on a twig wrapped with Marcus’ ribbons. Gladys rings the bell, completing Marcus’ hypnosis. Gladys then wrapped Marcus’ twig with his husband’s hair, where snapping it caused Marcus to bludgeon his husband to death with his own head.
Oh this witch needs to DIE
That’s what I’m sayin’! After getting Marcus and his husband killed then possessing town police officer Paul and hobo junkie James, Gladys tells Alex they need to leave the town. At this point, Ms. Gandy and Archer pull up together after realising all the missing children ran toward the Lilly residence. They walk inside and are attacked by Paul and James, both are killed with a bullet to the skull, courtesy of Ms. Gandy. During the attack, Alex decides to not listen to Gladys’ orders, stepping over a line of salt consequentially causing his parents to chase him down.
During the chase, Alex locks himself in the bathroom, not before grabbing a twig from Aunty Gladys’ tree. Alex wraps a strand of Gladys’ hair around it and snaps the twig, commanding the hypnotised children in the basement to chase after and kill Gladys. In what was one of the most flabbergasting sequences I’ve seen in cinemas, the 17 children scream and chase after an elderly lady frantically breaking through people’s homes. The children finally catch her, dismembering her limbs and breaking the hypnosis.
So everything is happy now, right? 😀
The closing narration informs us Alex’s parents have been institutionalised, with Alex moving in with a kinder relative.
The 17 kids stood motionless over the dead witch, who like Orson Krennic, was killed by their own weapon. Archer arrived at the scene and called to his son, who looked over at his father void of emotion. The narration states the kids were reunited with their parents, with some able to speak two years after the incident.
Is a Weapons sequel in the works?
As I mentioned earlier, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema are already talking with the director about a prequel film with Gladys. The Hollywood Reporter revealed Cregger had a dedicated section of the script from Gladys’ perspective, detailing her backstory. This removed section would supposedly be extended into a feature length film, should Cregger and the studios want to capitalise on the success of Weapons.
Weapons is playing in cinemas now.
