Weapons (2025) – Plot, Cast & Ending Explained | Zach Cregger

Weapons (2025) – Plot, Cast & Ending Explained | Zach Cregger

Weapons Overview

Weapons is a 2025 American mystery-horror film written and directed by Zach Cregger, known for his hit debut Barbarian. It stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Cary Christopher, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan. The story centers on a bizarre incident in the quiet town of Maybrook: one night at 2:17 a.m., 17 children from the same third-grade class simultaneously vanish, each child rising from bed and running into the darkness in a trance-like state. With only grainy doorbell camera footage of the kids sprinting away and no signs of foul play, suspicion quickly falls on their homeroom teacher, Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), since all the missing children were her students. As panicked parents demand answers, Justine teams up with Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) – a desperate father of one of the missing kids – to uncover the truth behind the mass disappearance. The film unfolds as a multi-perspective ensemble horror, methodically revealing clues through the eyes of different characters to solve the chilling mystery.

Weapons Cast and Characters

• Julia Garner as Justine Gandy – a dedicated elementary school teacher who arrives one morning to find all but one of her students missing. In the aftermath, she becomes the focus of the town’s ire, with angry parents casting blame on her for the children’s disappearance. IG :　https://www.instagram.com/juliagarnerofficial/

  
  

• Josh Brolin as Archer Graff – the father of Matthew Graff, one of the missing children. Grief-stricken and guilt-ridden, Archer becomes obsessed with finding his son and initially lashes out at Justine before ultimately joining forces with her to investigate the mystery. IG :　https://www.instagram.com/joshbrolin/

  
  

• Cary Christopher as Alex Lilly – the only child from Justine’s class who did not disappear that night. Alex is a quiet boy whose parents house an ailing aunt; as the sole student left, he becomes a key figure in uncovering what happened to his classmates. IG :　https://www.instagram.com/carychristopherofficial/

  
  

• Alden Ehrenreich as Paul Morgan – a local police officer (and Justine’s ex-boyfriend) assigned to the case. Paul’s personal ties to Justine complicate matters, and he proves unable to crack the case, driving Justine and Archer to pursue leads on their own. IG : 　https://www.instagram.com/aldenehrenreich/

  
  

• Austin Abrams as “James” (Anthony) – a homeless drug addict and petty thief who gets entangled in the events. James serves as an unwitting witness to supernatural occurrences in town and later becomes a pawn in the film’s climax. IG :　https://www.instagram.com/austinabramsfans/

  
  

• Benedict Wong as Principal Andrew Marcus – the principal of Maybrook Elementary. Initially a well-meaning if ineffectual authority figure, Marcus is drawn deeper into the mystery when he attempts to check on Alex’s welfare, only to encounter a sinister force himself. IG : https://www.instagram.com/wongrel/

  
  

• Amy Madigan as Gladys Lilly – Alex’s ostensibly sick great-aunt, who comes to stay with Alex’s family. Gladys is eventually revealed as the evil force behind the children’s disappearance, using dark occult magic to control others for her nefarious ends. IG :　https://www.instagram.com/amymadigan_/

Weapons Plot Summary

At 2:17 a.m., seventeen children from Justine Gandy’s third-grade class quietly leave their homes and run into the night in unison.

The Disappearances: In the dead of night, 17 third-graders from Maybrook, Pennsylvania inexplicably awaken at 2:17 a.m., walk out their front doors, and sprint off into the darkness, all in eerie synchrony. The next morning, Ms. Justine Gandy discovers nearly her entire class is absent – every child gone except one, Alex Lilly. The police are baffled, and frightened parents gather, desperate for answers. Lacking any logical explanation, many in the community direct their anger at Justine. She falls under intense scrutiny and suspicion, with rumors swirling that she must know something about what happened to her students. As days pass with no sign of the kids, the town’s hysteria grows. Justine is placed on a forced leave of absence by Principal Marcus as upset parents demand a scapegoat. Someone even vandalizes Justine’s car by spray-painting the word “WITCH” on it, reflecting the town’s belief that she somehow bewitched or harmed the children.

Multiple Perspectives: The narrative is structured in chapters, each focusing on a different character’s point of view as the mystery unfolds. We first follow Justine, who is devastated by her students’ disappearance and ostracized by neighbors. Feeling guilty and powerless, she turns to alcohol to cope and even makes reckless choices – at one point rekindling a fling with her ex, Officer Paul Morgan, in a misguided search for comfort. (This backfires when Paul’s wife discovers the affair and publicly attacks Justine, further humiliating her.) Meanwhile, Archer Graff, father of missing boy Matthew, becomes single-minded in his grief. Archer obsessively replays his home’s doorbell camera footage, which captured his son bolting out the door at 2:17 a.m., arms outstretched “like Superman”, and disappearing into the night. At a tense PTA meeting, Archer openly accuses Justine of negligence or worse, fueling the town’s paranoia. Over the course of a month with no progress, Archer’s sorrow turns to resolve. Though initially antagonistic toward Justine, he realizes she is also suffering and may be his only ally who truly cares about the children’s fate. He eventually joins forces with Justine, vowing to do what the official investigation has failed to – find out what made the children run.

 Julia Garner as Justine Gandy, the embattled schoolteacher, awakens to a terrifying sight – one of many supernatural manifestations caused by Gladys’ dark magic.

As Justine and Archer start their unofficial investigation, other perspectives emerge. We see the story through Principal Andrew Marcus (Benedict Wong), who struggles with guilt over not protecting the kids and the now-jobless Justine. Persuaded by Justine, Principal Marcus decides to personally check on young Alex Lilly – the lone student who didn’t vanish – suspecting Alex might hold clues to the mystery. Marcus visits Alex’s home and encounters Gladys Lilly (Amy Madigan), introduced as Alex’s elderly great-aunt who recently moved in due to illness. Marcus immediately senses something “off” about Gladys. In fact, Marcus – and other townsfolk – have begun seeing fleeting, bizarre apparitions of a creepy older woman around town. These surreal visions include Gladys appearing in clownish makeup on Justine’s bedroom ceiling and to a local vagrant in the woods. Though they don’t yet understand it, the audience comes to realize Gladys is not an innocent aunt at all, but a witch-like entity orchestrating events.

Revelations of Witchcraft: When Marcus insists on speaking with Alex’s parents, Gladys ominously claims the boy’s mom and dad are “suffering from consumption” and unavailable. Shortly after, Gladys pays an unwelcome visit to Principal Marcus and his husband, Terry, at their home. Under the guise of a sweet old lady, she gains entry; once inside, Gladys drops all pretenses and performs a dark ritual. Using sticks, strands of human hair, her own blood, and a golden bell, Gladys casts a spell that enslaves Marcus’s mind, turning him into her puppet. In a horrifying sequence, she compels Marcus to savagely attack his own husband – Marcus murders Terry under Gladys’s spell – and then sends the bewitched principal out as her “weapon” against Justine. Marcus, now under complete supernatural control, ambushes Justine at the school, but Justine and Archer together manage to fend him off. The confrontation ends abruptly when Marcus is struck and killed by a passing car during the struggle, freeing him from Gladys’s influence. Though horrified by Marcus’s fate, Archer and Justine survive the attack. Realizing an evil force is truly at play, they formally set aside their differences and decide to team up fully to solve the case, convinced that whatever happened to the children centers on Alex Lilly’s household.

The Truth Uncovered: In the final chapter, the film shifts to Alex Lilly’s perspective, finally unveiling the full scope of Gladys’s plot. Flashbacks reveal that when Gladys arrived to stay at Alex’s home, she appeared as a frail, elderly woman. But the day after her arrival, Alex came home from school to find something shocking: Gladys suddenly looked years younger and healthier, while his parents had fallen into eerily passive, near-catatonic states. It becomes clear that Gladys is some kind of parasitic witch who drains life force from others to rejuvenate herself. Terrified, Alex watches as Gladys uses sinister magic to paralyze and torture his parents – at one point forcing Mr. and Mrs. Lilly to mutilate themselves in front of him – and threatens to kill them if Alex disobeys her. To sustain her dark power, Gladys needs more vitality than one couple can provide. She coerces Alex into helping: Gladys orders Alex to secretly collect a personal belonging from each of his classmates, a task he reluctantly completes. Using those items (hairbrushes, toys, clothing, etc.), Gladys performs an elaborate ritual to bind the 17 children to her will – the same kind of spell she used on Marcus. At precisely 2:17 a.m. one night, she rings her enchanted bell: under its spell, all 17 missing kids rise from bed and converge at the Lilly house, entering in a trance as summoned. This finally explains the opening mystery: the children were not abducted by aliens or running off freely, but magically compelled by Gladys’s witchcraft to “run away” to her. Once in the house, the children shuffle straight into the basement, where Gladys keeps them prisoner, quietly feeding on their life essence to maintain her youth. Over subsequent weeks, Alex – whom Gladys spares in exchange for his obedience – is forced to help care for his hypnotized classmates in the basement, secretly keeping them alive with bowls of soup while Gladys slowly saps their vitality.

Climax – The Final Showdown: The climax begins with Archer and Justine arriving at the Lilly house, having deduced that something is very wrong there and that Alex’s “sick aunt” is the common denominator in all the strange events. They enter the home to confront Gladys, only to find a nightmarish scene unfolding. In an upstairs room, Gladys has taken Paul (Officer Morgan) and James (the drug addict) hostage – both men had separately gotten too close to the truth and were captured by her. Gladys has drawn a protective line of salt on the floor and warns Alex not to cross it, effectively barring him from helping her captives. When Justine and Archer burst in, Gladys uses her powers to possess Paul and James, turning them into violent puppets just like Marcus was. A chaotic fight erupts: the possessed Paul and James attack Archer and Justine with unnatural strength and fury. Justine is forced into a life-or-death struggle with her ex-boyfriend and the crazed vagrant. In the end, Justine manages to stab and kill both Paul and James during the brawl, a tragic necessity to survive Gladys’s onslaught. Meanwhile, Archer rushes to the basement amid the commotion, where he finds all the missing children alive but in a dull-eyed trance, including his own son Matthew. Before Archer can free the kids, Gladys appears and swiftly bewilders Archer with her magic, making Archer the next unwitting thrall. She sics Archer on Justine, adding him to her collection of controlled “weapons”. Justine now faces her friend in combat, struggling to hold off Archer’s assault as Gladys tightens her grip on the situation.

Upstairs, young Alex decides he must act. Having closely observed Gladys’s rituals for weeks, Alex has learned the source of her power. He sneaks into Gladys’s room and finds her enchanted ritual implements – including the bundle of sticks and strands of hair she uses to command her victims. Summoning his courage, Alex wraps a lock of Gladys’s own hair around her magic stick and snaps it in half, deliberately breaking the spell that binds her magic. This triggers an immediate reversal of fortunes in the house. Down in the basement, all 17 children suddenly awaken from their trance as the spell on them shatters. Freed from Gladys’s control and overcome by panic and rage, the horde of children stampedes up from the basement. They crash through doors and even windows, anything to get out of the house, and then chase the now-powerless Gladys into the night. Gladys flees in terror, but the children pursue relentlessly. In a grimly satisfying turn, the kids swarm their tormentor like a pack of wild animals and viciously tear Gladys apart, killing the witch once and for all. (The film pointedly compares this gory scene to a pride of lions savaging their prey – a cathartic yet macabre end to Gladys’s tyranny.)

Weapons Ending Explained: Aftermath and Conclusion

With Gladys defeated, her dark enchantments lift. Archer, who had briefly fallen under her spell, instantly returns to his senses once Gladys is killed. All 17 missing children are finally freed, stumbling back to their families after their weeks-long ordeal in the Lillys’ basement. Every child survives, though they are deeply traumatized and initially in shock – many of the kids are mute or dissociative in the immediate aftermath. (According to the film’s young narrator – one of Justine’s students who recounts the “true story” – the children gradually recover their ability to speak over the following year, though the scars of what happened will linger.) Tragically, not everyone comes out alive: the violent showdown claimed the lives of Paul, James, and Principal Marcus, who all fell victim to Gladys’s manipulations and perished during the chaos. Principal Marcus had inadvertently killed his husband while bewitched, compounding the tragedy. Alex’s mother and father, having been under Gladys’s debilitating influence for so long, do survive but are left in a vegetative, mentally broken state; they are ultimately committed to a psychiatric institution for recovery. As for Alex Lilly, he is hailed as a hero for his bravery in stopping Gladys. The film’s epilogue notes that Alex goes to live with a different, genuinely caring aunt – a much kinder guardian than the monstrous “Aunt Gladys” he had endured.

In the final moments, Justine and Archer stand together, watching over the recovering children of Maybrook. Having gone through unimaginable horror, the community begins its healing process. Justine is no longer a pariah; her name is cleared, though she bears emotional wounds from the trauma. Archer, while grieving the violence that unfolded, is reunited with his son Matthew. The ending is bittersweet – the missing kids are saved and the supernatural threat eliminated, but the innocence of this town has been irrevocably shattered. Weapons concludes on a note of lingering dread: even as life slowly returns to normal, the scars of that night at 2:17 a.m. serve as a haunting reminder of the “overwhelming emotion of losing someone” and the darkness that briefly consumed their world. The mystery is solved and evil vanquished, but the impact on these families ensures that Maybrook will never be the same again.