Question about Weapons

1. From what I took in, Gladys is basically an energy vampire / witch that drains the life force from younger people. She assumed Alex's parents would be enough but she was mistaken hence needing all the kids in the basement. She just needed more time in their presence to restore her energy, she was clearly getting younger and stronger over time. 2. It is still unclear if Gladys is even related to Alex and his parents. Both parents seemingly gave different descriptions of Gladys and when they last saw her or knew her from making it seem like she had cast a spell on them

She went from decaying in her room to visiting the school to running for her life. It was def a life force transfer. So, like, end goal would be to steal enough life force, then dip

A lot of it was deliberately left up to interpretation, but I think she definitely was taking the life force of the kids/Alex's parents to make herself (at least temporarily) better.  Alex's parents sustained her and gave her some energy (she's visibly more energetic after starting to drain them, compared to when they had to help her up the stairs when she moved in), but it wasn't enough for the long term so she pivots to Alex's classmates.

You've kind of answered your own question by stating that not everything needs to be fleshed out, but based on the context clues given through the movie, Gladys is extremely old when she mentions that Alex's parents are currently suffering from "Consumption" which would have killed people at one point in history but is now treatable with over the counter medicine and also known as tuberculosis. It's with these types of clues we can infer that she's not only extremely old, but the effectiveness of her spells are also wearing off causing her to search for new ways to maintain her youth, we could even argue that she's simply storing the children as she figures out and experiments with potential spells and remedies to halt her aging process.

Yeah I mean it was pretty clear that her spell also transferred some life force. We see this very clearly illustrated in her appearance - she goes from being a frail chemo patient looking person to being more vigorous looking. As to why it didn’t work with the parents who knows - maybe it works better with kids?

It does seem like keeping the parents and kids trapped in that kind of stasis was healing Gladys.

Gladys is super old. She *does* drain life force, but adults don't rejuvenate her long enough. Not enough youth left in them to steal. So she goes after the kids and is rejuvenated more fully. She's not sick, she's dying of old age.

I have a tangential question for the folks here, what *was* the AR above the house supposed to represent? Other than I guess it’s a… weapon. But I’m having a hard time finding some interpretation there the way you definitely can with Gladys even she’s kept (blissfully) murky. 

Weapons is an adult version of Hocus Pocus. In both films, the witches need the lifeforce of kids to regain their own life. Its as simple as that. As for the adults, the parents are obviously not children, so their lifeforce is miniscule in comparison, and were subsequently used as body guards/attack dogs. The principal was used as a means to eliminate a threat (the teacher). The druggy and cop were used as additional body guards/attack dogs. Gladys' entire motive was to regain life, nothing more, nothing less.

It’s a fairly standard witchcraft/black-magic trope. Using other people as essentially living voodoo dolls to foster the casters own ailments onto. IIRC it was the opening plot conceit of Hocus Pocus. And Jason Aaron’s Dr Strange run (shitearse as it mostly was) had a fun twist on it in [#10](https://www.weirdsciencedccomics.com/2016/08/doctor-strange-10-review-and-spoilers.html?m=1).

I think the gun and the time 217 has significance to a specific school shooting. I can't recall but I think that theres another reddit post here somewhere connecting that

You're trying to get very logical answers about a movie written by a guy who admits he himself doesn't even know everything about the script he wrote

For your information https://youtu.be/5KO2IjWI9fA

To me it seems like was a type of dark magic spell that takes time to drain life force away from the victim(s). Just from clues we got from the movie you get the sense that she’s been around for an unnaturally long time, so I think it’s a spell that loses some potency the more she uses it so she needs to go younger or have more victims for longer for it to work. As for her end goal i think it’s just to have immortality or at least a form of it. Edit: Removed some unnecessary words.

To me this whole movie seems like a metaphor about the current state of social media,and parents anxieties regarding it, as well as the looming spectre of school violence and mass shootings: A foreign, mysterious evil has entered your home and is controlling the minds of the children! And even worse, it was the parents who invited her in! Individually, the parents are helpless to combat it without focused communal effort; only by comparing all the footage of the children fleeing their homes was the source located. And in the end it's the children themselves who turn on the invading evil and rip it to shreds. When viewed allegorically, All the expository details that would explain her backstory are kind of irrelevant. In fact, the metaphor works better when we never learn why exactly she did what she did. And while I haven't read anything from the director saying that this was an intentional allegory, it's clearly a response to the times. I think movies that are culturally significant and discussed and analyzed well into the future, regardless of box office numbers, at those which touch upon similar cultural anxieties or memes that nobody's really given a label to yet. The film then becomes a way or vehicle through which to examine these emerging societal fears. In fact, my biggest criticism of the movie is that the director didn't seem to see his own allegory and hone it into a more potent message.

You watch the movie with your eyes closed?

There’s a lot of the film that’s unexplained. >!Like how did Josh Brolin get prophetic dreams all of sudden?!< To me the biggest problem was pacing. The central mystery is simultaneously solved way too quickly and took too long. >!One guy just follows where the kids ran in a straight line and they find them just like that? Seriously, the cops just see them run directly ahead and are completely stumped. “There’s no way to tell where a straight line goes. Those children can be absolutely anywhere on this line so there’s no way to know where they are.”!< >!But then there’s ONE kid that’s left alone and no one finds him suspicious? No one bothers visiting his house or meeting his parents? The teacher is less of an anomaly. She’s an adult.!< I thought Barbarian was a better film.

Honestly nothing about Gladys plan makes sense, and the mystery should have been solved like, instantly. The sole remaining student has all the other students in his house? Nobody noticed dozens of lobotomized children running in and out, even late at night? Nobody thought to do what Josh Brolin did and check people's Ring cameras? The police investigate the kids house and no red flags are raised when his parents are absent and only this creepy crazy lady is there to talk to them? There's just so many holes in it all. Especially when you realize just how much of this insane shit is happening in broad daylight. Even the beginning monologue (they never came back) is contradicted by the ending one (some of them started talking again)

It felt like nothing added up purposefully. Little of the information imparted throughout the movie informs the climax or explains the circumstances. I'm fine having a generic witch be the villain, but why send us down these forks in the road if ultimately half the people we follow are only needed to be generic physical threats to the heroine at the end? I also feel like it's kind of lazy to leave the gun imagery completely up to interpretation. A class of kids goes missing, and you drop AR-15 imagery on us...lean into it. What are we saying about the community's outrage, grief, acceptance, dismissal, celebration of this kind of thing happening? I was actually waiting for someone to come around and play devil's advocate about the benefit of the kids disappearing which never happened. I see how Gladys represents the kind of callous older voter who may not have the interest of subsequent generations at heart, but then what's the parallel between her feeding off of youthful energy and gun violence specifically?

It’s because it’s a terribly written film. 

IMO it’s way simpler than the above. She isn’t “sick” at all, it’s a rouse to get her claws in people. A manipulation tactic. She’s an evil witch archetype. Her entire existence is about corrupting and ruining others and gaining blind power. If she takes over the parents, she wants the kid. She gets the kid in control, she wants the other kids as “weapons”, then she uses them to get their families.  Then she takes the neighborhood. Then the district, then the city, then the county, state, country, world…. She would go endlessly until hitting a barrier to more power, or being stopped.

yo, I feel you on wanting more clarity about Gladys' motives, it definitely leaves you questioning what's really going on. the comparison to Hocus Pocus is interesting; maybe her endgame was more about control or influence rather than outright sacrifice, but idk, it definitely felt more mysterious than clear cut for sure.