Weapons has been the talk of the town (internet) since its highly anticipated release. Weapons hit theaters just last week and has been receiving both rave reviews and some criticism. But no one can argue the fact that Aunt Gladys is a mysterious villain that we all want to know more about.
Weapons is told in multiple POVs with characters Justine, Archer, Paul, James, and Alex. Zach Cregger stated that he had originally planned for Gladys to have her own POV containing a snippet of her backstory but ultimately cut it from the final script. The cut POV can be expanded on so much more than just a small chapter of Weapons.
Weapons is Creggers sophomore debut, following the release of Barbarian. Weapons is about 17 third graders who mysteriously go missing at 2:17am, which is every kid in Justine's class except for one. Alex is the only kid who did not go running into the dark and no one can figure out why. But Alex has a secret of his own that he can't tell anyone no matter how badly he wants to.
Gladys is Alex Lilly’s Aunt and she has changed his life for the worse. Alex and his parents live completely normal lives until his Aunt moves in claiming she is very sick and in need of help. Little do they know, Gladys is a parasitic witch who feeds off her hosts by a form of possession. Alex learns of her power after she possesses his parents. She can make them do whatever she wants and can even make them eat themselves if she wishes.
The reason why everyone wants a backstory on Gladys is because the origin of her rituals isn't explained. Gladys uses special twigs from a small tree and then wraps human hair around the twig from the host she wishes to control or harm. In order to "activate" her weapon she has to use a little bit of blood to coat the hair and twig, but the activation only happens when she breaks the twig in two.
Gladys' power is shrouded in mystery but there are a few clues to piece together. She is obviously very old because she uses the term consumption to describe Alex's parents' condition. Consumption was around early 19th century but is now referred to as tuberculosis. Gladys needs to feed off the energy of people in order to survive as long as she has. But the questions remain, just how old is Gladys and how did she learn to control people?
There is no deal quite yet for the prequel or any other concrete news. Zach Cregger is still working on his Resident Evil reboot and hasn’t spoken much more on the topic of Aunt Gladys and the future of her story.