‘Weapons’ ending explained: where did the missing kids go?

Barbarian director Zach Cregger returns with another horror mystery in Weapons.

Starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, the film picks up after seventeen children in Maybrook, Pennsylvania mysteriously run away from their homes on the same night at the same time. All the children come from the same class, but one remains called Alex.

• READ MORE: ‘Weapons’ director Zach Cregger is ripping up the horror rulebook

As tensions run high, Weapons jumps between multiple perspectives, including teacher Justine and haunted father Archer, as the town tries to grapple with the inexplicable case.

Other cast members include Cary Christopher, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, Toby Huss, Sara Paxton, Justin Long and June Diane Raphael.

Where did the children run to in Weapons?

As revealed during the last section of the film, all seventeen children were bewitched by Alex’s so-called “aunt” Gladys (Amy Madigan). Gladys, who is actually a witch, summoned the children through a spell using items Alex had collected from his classmates, something he had helped her with in order to keep his spellbound parents alive.

All the bewitched children were kept hidden in the basement of Alex’s house, where Gladys was using them to stay alive and youthful. The first person to discover them was homeless drug addict James (Austin Abrams), who broke into the house to steal supplies.

What happened at the end of Weapons?

When Justine (Julia Garner) and Archer (Josh Brolin) visit Alex’s house, they are attacked by bewitched drug addict James and police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich). Meanwhile, in the upstairs of the house, Alex is trying to escape his parents who are under a spell too.

In the struggle, Alex manages to copy Gladys’s spell using hair from her wig, which causes the bewitched children to chase Gladys out of the house. After running across town, the children catch up to her and brutally rip her body to shreds.

The death of Gladys breaks the witch’s spell hanging over the children, along with the remaining survivors. However, as we learn from the narrator, it isn’t a happy ending. Alex moves to live with another aunt out of town after his parents are institutionalised, while only some of the traumatised children start speaking again a year later.

What has the director said about the ending?

In an interview with Inverse, director Zach Cregger said Weapons originally had a more abrupt ending without the closing narration.

“Originally that voiceover that comes in at the end wasn’t even in there,” Cregger said. “I was not really into that idea. I wanted to just end it on [Matthew]’s look. But people were not stoked on that.”

The film’s ending was changed after audiences in test screenings were left dissatisfied by the hard cut to black. “There was no voiceover, and we just ended on the kid’s face,” he added. “The lights went out and ‘Written and directed by Zach Cregger’ came up, and a woman in the theatre goes, ‘What the fuck?'”

Cregger added the voiceove to give people a “little bit more closure”, adding: “Hopefully you get enough where you don’t feel ripped off.”

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