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The realization that something relatively innocuous is actually an in-your-face clue planted early on in the film should give fans another level of appreciation for Cregger’s sense of humor and clever, playful filmmaking.
Warning: Major spoilers below for Weapons
Weapons follows the perspectives of multiple characters to piece together the mystery behind 17 kids who went missing after they ran out of their homes at 2:17 a.m. one night. The story vignettes begin with Justine (Julia Garner), the teacher at the center of the disappearances, and much scrutiny, because the missing students all came from her classroom. A tense town meeting, held about a month after the bizarre event, confirms that many parents blame Justine or suspect she was somehow involved. One parent in particular, Archer (Josh Brolin), who is wrapped up in guilt and grief over his missing son, Matthew, takes his frustrations and suspicions out on Justine one night by vandalizing her car, painting the word “WITCH” in red, an act of vandalism that is showcased for the rest of the movie.
While audiences likely initially assume this incident of someone tagging Justine’s car is a minor part of the story and an encapsulation of Archer’s mindset, it becomes apparent as Weapons plays out that the word “witch,” plainly hidden in bright, bold letters, is actually a major tell about who is responsible for the missing kids.
Weapons Villain Really Is A Witch All Along
Weapons eventually introduces us to Gladys (Amy Madigan), who has come to town to live with her niece and her niece’s husband — the parents of the movie’s key young character, Alex (Cary Christopher) — due to what appears to be a terminal medical condition. Alex is the only student in Justine’s classroom who didn’t take off in the middle of the night, and that’s because he’s being terrorized and manipulated by Aunt Gladys, a witch whose dark magic spell is responsible for the missing children.
Justine may have been accused of being a witch, serving as the town’s scapegoat, but it’s a dying Gladys who has set everything in motion. Gladys attempts to save her own life by feeding off the lives of others, and siphoning lifeforce from young kids is apparently the most efficient means of restoring her youth. She uses blood magic and branches of an ancient-looking tree to force people to do her bidding; sometimes that means standing guard for her, attacking and killing others who are getting too close to the truth; or, in the case of the 17 children, standing catatonic in a basement as she feeds off of them. The longer she works her magic, the more Gladys regains her youthfulness, and her health improves: her hair slowly begins to grow back, her wrinkles lessen, and her movement becomes more fluid as Cregger uses a familiar tale of a witch using magic to steal youth as the foundation of a much larger, more meaningful story.
