Weapons: How the movie foreshadowed who would find the missing children

Weapons is one of those movies that catches you off guard. It does not give the impression of a typical horror story but it also does not fully reveal its brilliance, until you watch it in the big screen. A bunch of kids vanish from a school in the movie and we are wired to think it's a missing people trope. But, we are proven wrong.

Weapons starts pulling you in, bit by bit. The way Zach Cregger, who also made Barbarian, sets it up is clever as well as creepy. That combination is rare. And if paired with an undercurrent of mystery, it becomes an absolute gem. If you love jump scares, you probably won't enjoy the movie as much. It does not have to rely on tricks to terrify you, the writing does it.

And the cast is another reason why the movie stands apart. Josh Brolin plays a desperate dad. Julia Garner is a teacher who ends up taking the blame. Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan (who really makes your skin crawl as Gladys), and Austin Abrams are no less. It almost feels like they’re living in that messed up little world, and we are witnessing their real lives.

Weapons dropped in theaters on August 8, 2025. And it’s been making big news since then. The critics are talking, and the way the plot jumps between different points of view keeps you chasing answers the whole way through. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t hand you everything. You’ve got to catch the little details yourself.

Weapons: The movie foreshadowed James would find the missing children

When we first meet James in Weapons, he is a scrappy and homeless person. It becomes clear that he is someone who just drifts through life trying to get by however he can. At first, it feels like he’s there for a quick laugh or to fill in the rough edges of the story. Just a petty thief with a few funny lines and not much else to do. But that’s where the movie pulls a neat trick on us.

As the story moves forward, James starts to matter in ways you don’t expect. He slowly shifts from being a background character to one of the most important characters in the movie. It even drops a sly hint that James might play a bigger role in the missing children storyline.

There’s this "blink and you miss it" moment where he’s in a pawn shop. A poster of the missing kids is right there in the background. He doesn’t even notice it at the time, just gives it a passing glance, but it plants a seed in the audience’s mind. It is a tiny breadcrumb pointing to what’s coming.

James eventually stumbles into the most jaw dropping part of the whole movie, and suddenly, everything changes. He breaks into Alex's house. But while he is stealing things, Alex's parents who are under Gladys' spell attack him, pushing him down to the basement. And that's where he finds the missing children.

Weapons wouldn’t have progressed the way it did without this character. It’s one of those character arcs that proves sometimes the most unlikely people end up being the most important.