Leave it to the internet to turn a woman who kidnaps 17 children into a gay icon. It’s been nearly a month since “Weapons” was released in theaters on Aug. 8, and I’ve already seen countless memes about how the movie’s antagonist, Aunt Gladys, is now a gay icon and a popular figure in drag. My personal favorite is a meme with the caption, “Gays will say ‘she saved my life’ and it’s just Aunt Gladys from ‘Weapons’” with a photo of the iconic red-headed witch underneath. It’s terribly ironic considering the fact that the only time we see Gladys directly murder someone is when she invades the home of the principal of the elementary school where the kidnapped kids attend, and murders both him and his husband. The only gay characters in the entire movie were murdered by her, and we see her do it. But I guess it was iconic?
The movie as a whole was disturbingly creepy, wildly uncomfortable to watch at many points and the perfect blend of thriller and mystery to kick off the spooky season. The concept is already a hard pill to swallow — 17 third graders randomly go missing on the same night, all leaving their houses at 2:17 a.m. and never returning. But the truth about what happened to the children is so much more disturbing and supernatural than you can imagine. There was a lot of build-up throughout the movie about what was going on in the town, including a few jump scares and characters running creepily in a T-pose. The movie was only gory towards the end, which I prefer to see in horror. A movie that relies too heavily on gore becomes dull and gross, not interesting and nail-biting. The violence in the movie was appropriate for the context of the scenes, especially at the end when the children tear Gladys limb from limb. That was a satisfying, but nonetheless a nauseating, watch.
The movie is divided into different chapters; we see the same events from various different perspectives and how everyone’s stories intersect more than they might realize. It started with a chapter for the third grade teacher of the missing kids, Justine (Julia Gardner), followed by one of the parents of the missing children, Archer (Josh Brolin). We saw a local cop, Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), followed by James (Austin Abrams), a homeless drug-addict. Lastly, we saw Alex’s chapter (Cary Christopher), who was the only child in the third-grade class who didn’t go missing. We then learn that Alex’s Aunt Gladys is the mastermind behind the entire kidnapping operation, using mind-control and witchcraft to keep herself and the children alive.
The best part about this movie is its originality. There’s no movie that I can truly compare to “Weapons” because the plot and the characters we meet are extremely unique, especially Aunt Gladys. She’s a ruthless, heartless villain in a goofy clown wig who uses a tree branch to control people’s minds. Although we get a full picture of her villainy, I wish we had learned more about her backstory. Why does she survive on mind-control? How did she figure that out? How old is she?
This movie was addictive and shocking, and I can’t wait to watch it again. I also can’t wait to see more from Zach Cregger in the future, as this is the first film of his I’ve seen, and as an avid horror fan, I’ll definitely be back for more.
