Weapons

My Thoughts

Heard about this horror film only days before watching. Skipped the trailer, which made the experience more exciting, especially for a movie like this. It had only two jump scares; most of the tension came from an eerie, untrustworthy atmosphere. The scene where Justine gets her hair secretly cut in the car was particularly unsettling. The reveal was slightly disappointing. The ending was satisfying but lacked the strong shock factor—I still rank Hereditary as my top “what-just-happened” horror.

Plot Summary (Spoilers)

• At 2:17 a.m. in Maybrook, Pennsylvania, 17 children from the same third-grade class leave their homes and disappear—except Alex Lilly.
• Their teacher, Justine Gandy, arrives at school to find only Alex; suspicion falls on her, and she’s put on leave. She becomes depressed, drinks heavily, and reconnects with her ex, police officer Paul Morgan.
• Alex’s great-aunt Gladys, sickly and mysterious, has moved in. She uses witchcraft to control children, requiring personal items from each victim.
• Alex unknowingly helps by collecting belongings from classmates, allowing Gladys to lure and trap them in the basement under a trance.
• Grieving parent Archer Graff and Justine investigate, uncovering the truth at Alex’s house.
• In the climax, Alex uses Gladys’s own magic, with her hair and a bewitched stick, to break the curse. The children kill Gladys in revenge.
• The curse ends; the kids return home, but trauma lingers. Alex’s parents remain institutionalized, and he moves in with a kinder aunt.