{"id":58962,"date":"2025-08-11T10:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T10:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/58962\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T10:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T10:40:08","slug":"weapons-explained-what-happened-to-the-17-missing-children-in-hit-horror-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/58962\/","title":{"rendered":"Weapons explained: What happened to the 17 missing children in hit horror movie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Weapons<\/a> is the latest horror movie<\/a> to generate a huge word-of-mouth following,<\/a> with director Zach Cregger\u2019s new film leaving many viewers baffled by what they have seen. <\/p>\n

The film, starring Josh Brolin<\/a>, Julia Garner<\/a>, Benedict Wong and Alden Ehrenreich<\/a>, focuses on a mystery that is printed on its promotional poster.<\/p>\n

It says: \u201cLast night, at 2:17 am, every child from Mrs Gandy\u2019s class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark\u2026 and they never came back.\u201d<\/p>\n

On social media, people who have seen the movie have called the ending \u201cdiabolical\u201d, claiming that it will stick in their memories for a \u201clong long time\u201d.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen the film and are confused as to what happened or just intrigued to see what all the hype is about, we\u2019ve broken down the plot for you below.<\/p>\n

Warning: The rest of this article contains major spoilers for Weapons!<\/p>\n

The film wastes no time and starts by immersing viewers in the mystery of the missing 17 children, which has left the exasperated parents of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, seeking answers. Strangely, only one boy from the class, Alex (Cary Christopher), didn\u2019t go missing during the incident.<\/p>\n

\"Cary<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Cary Christopher in \u2018Weapons\u2019 (Warner Bros\/ AP)<\/p>\n

Weapons then follows four individuals linked to the disappearance: Troubled teacher Justine Gandy (Garner), worried parent Archer (Brolin), school principal Marcus (Wong) and Alex\u2019s creepy and sick aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan).<\/p>\n

It is revealed that Gladys is a witch who has used her dark magic to render Alex\u2019s parents mute and motionless in their own home and appears to be harnessing their energy to make herself healthy again. She has also concocted a new spell which brainwashes people into murdering others, essentially turning them into weapons.<\/p>\n

\"Julia<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Julia Garner and Josh Brolin in Zach Cregger’s \u2018Weapons\u2019 (Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

A weaponised Marcus then attempts to kill Justine while she is being confronted by an irate Archer. Trying to protect Justine, Archer manages to fend off Marcus, who is then hit by a car and killed while running after his target. Justine and Archer then agree to work together and figure out that the children\u2019s last known locations all point to Alex\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

The duo then manage to overcome her ex-boyfriend Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) and his friend James (Austin Abrams) and then head towards the basement, where they find the missing children. However, in doing so, Archer becomes brainwashed by Gladys, who orders him to kill Justine.<\/p>\n

With the situation looking bleak, Alex, who has been studying Gladys, manages to escape from his brainwashed parents and casts a new spell, which orders the children to kill his aunt. The 17 children then chase Gladys out of the house and savagely tear her to shreds. With Gladys dead, the spell is seemingly lifted from those who had been brainwashed.<\/p>\n

\"Julia<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Julia Garner in \u2018Weapons\u2019 (Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

The film ends with a narration from Alex, which takes place two years after the events of the movie. He explains that all of the children were returned to their homes and some have just started to talk again. Alex\u2019s parents were institutionalised due to their trauma but never recovered. Ominously, he reveals that he has been sent to live with a \u201cnice\u201d aunt instead.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the film\u2019s ending and the overall message of the film, Cregger told The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> that it was inspired by his experiences of living with his father\u2019s alcohol addiction. <\/p>\n

\u201cLiving in a house with an alcoholic parent, the inversion of the family dynamic that happens,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea that this foreign entity comes into your home, and it changes your parent, and you have to deal with this new behavioural pattern that you don\u2019t understand and don\u2019t have the equipment to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cregger did concede that he doesn\u2019t mind if the metaphor doesn\u2019t come through and just hopes \u201cpeople have fun\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a four-star review<\/a>, The Independent\u2019s Clarisse Loughrey writes of the ending: \u201cYet, its climactic image is a pointed, and unexpectedly funny, act of intergenerational warfare that reveals Weapons\u2019s true message: no one\u2019s ever really thinking about the children.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-58962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}