Horror enthusiasts have been eagerly anticipating the release of Weapons, and the wait is finally over. Weapons is now available for streaming on HBO Max, accessible at no additional cost to subscribers, just in time to add some thrills to your Halloween week.

This film marks director Zach Cregger’s latest venture following the success of his highly acclaimed 2022 hit, Barbarian. In Weapons, Cregger spins a chilling tale centered around an eerie case of missing children. The narrative unfolds as 17 children mysteriously leave their homes in the dead of night to gather at an undisclosed location. As panic sets in, suspicion falls on their teacher, Justine, portrayed by Julia Garner. The movie boasts an impressive cast, including Josh Brolin, Cary Christopher, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.

After making a notable impression in theaters, Weapons is expected to draw a significant audience on HBO Max. If you found the plot complex or want a sneak peek at the frights before diving in, Decider has you covered with a detailed analysis of Weapons, including a plot summary and an explanation of the film’s conclusion.

Be advised: The following contains major spoilers for Weapons.

Weapons movie plot summary:

The film begins with a haunting voice-over from a young child recounting the “true story” of a tragic event that occurred in her town two years prior. She describes how, inexplicably, at precisely 2:17 a.m., 17 schoolchildren vanished into the night. All the children belonged to the same class, except for one boy, Alex Lilly, played by Cary Christopher, who mysteriously remained.

Months pass, and the children don’t reappear. Many of the parents of the missing blame the class’s teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), even though the police questioned her and don’t hold her responsible. The principal (Benedict Wong) places Justine on leave to placate the angry parents. Ostracized, Justine turns to heavy drinking and hooking up with her ex, a dirt bag local cop named Paul (Alden Ehrenreich). Justine accuses Paul of not working hard enough to solve the case of the missing children, and Paul takes that personally.

Justine believes Alex, the kid left behind, may know something about the case, or be in trouble. Even though she has been forbidden to speak to him, she decides to follow him home. She discovers his house’s windows covered in newspapers. Through a bare spot in the window, she sees what appears to be Alex’s parents sitting motionless on the couch. She calls the principal and begs him to check up on them. Later, when Justine confronts Alex, he’s acting very strange and screams at Justine to stop following him. Really weird stuff!

Justine decides to post up in her car outside Alex’s house to observe, but falls asleep. While she is sleeping, someone exits the house, comes into Justine’s car, and snips off a lock of her hair. Ahhh!

At this point, the movie switches perspectives from Justine to one of the fathers of the missing children, an aggressive man named Archer (Josh Brolin). Archer obsesses over his doorbell camera footage of his son Matthew running away. Archer has a dream that Matthew is trying to tell him something about a scary old lady in clown make-up. He decides to start his own investigation. He strongly suspects Justine has something to do with his missing son.

Archer confronts Justine in a gas station. During their argument, Justine is attacked by a bloodied, deranged version of the principal, who runs with his hands spread in the same way the kids ran from their houses that night. The principal is fixated on killing Justine, but Archer intervenes, fighting him off so Justine has enough time to escape.

The movie switches perspectives again, this time to Paul the cop. Earlier that day, while Paul was on patrol, he chased down and arrested an unhoused drug addict named James (Austin Abrams). While searching James, Paul gets stabbed by a mysterious drug needle. In a panic, Paul assaults James, knocking him out. He realizes his dash cam recorded this assault, so he lets James go with a warning.

Later that day, James breaks into Alex’s house to rob it. He discovers all the missing kids standing, motionless but alive, in the basement. He rushes to the police station to report what he saw, but is intercepted by Paul, who thinks he’s there to squeal on him. James tells Paul what he saw, and Paul agrees to go investigate Alex’s house. Paul enters the house, and doesn’t come out for hours. When he finally does, he’s deranged just like the principal, and drags James into the house with him.

Once again, the movie switches perspectives, this time to the principal, whose name is Marcus. We see that Marcus kept his promise to Justine, and checked in on Alex’s parents. However, it’s not Alex’s parents who show up for a meeting in his office, it’s a strange old woman who claims she is Alex’s aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan). She tells Marcus that Alex’s parents are very ill, and that she is taking care of Alex in the meantime. Marcus insists on speaking to Alex’s parents.

Gladys pays a visit to Marcus and his husband Terry (Clayton Farris) at home. Man, just when they had sat down to eat seven hot dogs! Gladys asks for a bowl of water—she insists she prefers to drink water from a bowl—and then performs a spell using a stick, a ribbon from Marcus’s office, her own blood, and a lock of Terry’s hair. When she breaks the stick in the bowl, she casts a spell on Marcus that possesses him to violently kill his own husband. A few things start to click, like why Justine got her hair snipped. It was to possess Marcus to kill her, which is why he attacked her in the gas station.

Basically, Gladys is a witch. We see via flashback that she came to stay with Alex’s parents, because she is dying, and wants to siphon their life force. She swears Alex to secrecy by demonstrating just how powerful she is—she can make his parents kill themselves, if she wants. Fearing for his parents’ lives, Alex agrees to help Gladys. He spoon feeds his catatonic parents to keep them alive. When Gladys still finds herself weak, she decides she needs even more life forces to steal. Stealing from children would give her a lot of life.

Under Gladys’s orders, Alex steals his classmate’s name tags from class. Gladys performs the spell that causes them to leave their homes and come to Alex’s basement. Just like Alex’s parents, these kids are in a catatonic state, while Gladys steals their life force. Alex is now responsible for spoon-feeding his parents and his classmates.

Weapons movie ending explained:

So now we know what’s been going on, and we’re caught up to the point where Paul the cop went into the house. Gladys puts both Paul and James under her spell, but seems to realize the walls are closing in on her. She informs Alex to pack so they can flee town. She also stations Alex’s possessed parents outside her door behind a line of salt, and warns Alex not to step over the salt.

Before they can make their escape, Justine and Archer—now working together after Archer saved her from Marcus—witness a possessed Paul beckoning them into the house, and enter Alex’s house to investigate. Julia steps over the salt line, which triggers Paul and James to attack. Apparently, the salt line is a way for Gladys to make her zombies attack, even without a lock of the victims hair.

Julia and Archer fight off the Paul and James zombies, and Julia manages to kill them with Paul’s gun. Archer goes to the basement to find his zombie son, where he is attacked by Gladys, and turned into a zombie. Archer, now possessed, attacks Justine.

While this is happening, Alex intentionally steps over the salt line, causing his zombie parents to attack him. This gets them away from guarding Gladys’s room. Alex manages to evade his parents and get into Gladys’s room, where he uses her supplies to cast a spell of his own. He uses Gladys’s hair to cast a spell that causes all the possessed children to go after Gladys herself.

The zombie children eventually catch Gladys and literally rip her body apart. Killing Gladys ends the various possession spells… kind of. Archer, who only just got turned into a zombie minutes ago, wakes up and is back to normal. But Alex’s parents, and the kids who have been catatonic for weeks, simply go back into a state of comatose. Maybe when Gladys died, all the possessed people just went back to the first state of possession they were in? It’s not explained.

That said, when Archer calls out for Matthew, Matthew turns his head to face his father. So perhaps there is hope that he can still recover.

The movie ends with the same kid from the beginning explaining via voice over that Alex moved in with a different aunt, who is nice. The kid also explains that the kids were all reunited with their parents, and that “some of them even started talking again this year.” With that, the movie ends.

While, there is still hope these kids might recover, it’s not a straight-forward happy ending where everything is fine. If you ask me, Archer was able to come back because he was not possessed for very long. The kids might also be able to come back, but it will take much longer for them. Alex’s parents, who were possessed for the longest amount of time, probably aren’t coming back. Or if they do, it will take a long, long time.

What does the gun scene in Weapons mean?

As for the metaphorical meaning of the movie, the movie hints at that with the moment in Archer’s dream where he sees a huge assault rifle suspended over the house. To me, this is a clue that the entire movie is a metaphor for school shootings, and the way they leave kids traumatized long after the shooting is over. Even though the bad guy is dead, it will take the kids a long time to recover.

Within the context of the dream, it’s also a way to let Archer know that the kids have been “weaponized,” aka turned into possessed zombies for Gladys to use as weapons.

But that’s just my interpretation. If you have a different take on the movie, let me know in the comments.