Impossible d’oublier cette nuit où j’ai assisté à « Évanouis » : à 2h17 du matin, dans le paisible village de Maybrook en Pennsylvanie, dix-sept enfants prennent la route, quittant leur foyer pour ne plus jamais donner signe de vie. Le lendemain, seule Justine, l’institutrice à la réputation fragile, découvre Alex, mutique, dans la classe déserte. Toute la ville s’affole, l’accuse de sorcellerie, et la police, démunie, piétine dans ses enquêtes. Mais le cauchemar ne fait alors que commencer.
La force du film réside dans sa narration en boucle : chaque chapitre relance l’histoire du même point, mais du regard d’un nouveau personnage. Il y a Justine, rongée par la peur et l’alcool, qui gagne en humanité à mesure que son passé refait surface. Archer Graff, père désespéré incarné par Josh Brolin, remet tout en question et finit, lui aussi, dans la folie — victime de violences quasi surnaturelles orchestrées par Marcus, le directeur. James, un cambrioleur toxicomane, trouve au sous-sol le cortège des enfants disparus, alors que Gladys, la tante mystérieuse d’Alex, commence à marquer les âmes. Chacun, perdu dans ses souvenirs, entrevoit des visions de la femme aux pouvoirs occultes — Gladys — qui évolue, séance après séance, de la vieille tante maladive à une figure menaçante, avide de jeunesse et manipulatrice.
Tous les fils narratifs convergent : Gladys transforme les adultes en armes humaines grâce à des rituels impliquant des mèches de cheveux et un arbre en pot. Alex, prisonnier de la terreur, obéit à Gladys pour sauver ses parents, alimentés comme des automates. Quand Gladys exige les objets personnels des camarades d’Alex pour ses rituels macabres, il cède, espérant qu’elle finira par disparaître. La tension monte, la transe devient collective : Justine et Archer découvrent la cache des enfants et affrontent les adultes possédés. C’est lors de la confrontation finale, dans la chambre de Gladys, qu’Alex brise l’emprise, retournant les enfants contre la sorcière — qui ne survivra pas à cette nuit maudite.
Et lorsque la dernière boucle se referme, tout ce qui semblait dissipé laisse des traces profondes : des parents anéantis, des enfants à jamais changés, et la silhouette de Gladys, dans l’ombre… Ce film m’a poursuivi longtemps, jusque dans mes rêves, où la tante Gladys ne cessait de me traquer. « Évanouis », plus qu’un simple film d’horreur, est une histoire qui s’immisce, chapitre après chapitre, dans l’esprit — comme une vraie légende noire américaine.
continuité: In one POV, the homeless man is in the back of the officers car until dark- until the point when the officer, who is clearly possessed, charges the car and drags him in the house. Yet, in another POV, Alex comes home from school during the day, notices the cruiser, and then sees the homeless man possessed inside his house. Alex would have noticed the cruiser when leaving for school in the morning OR the homeless man would still be inside the cruiser.
continuité: In the film, they said that the date the kids disappeared on was May 5, 2025, on a Wednesday but in reality that day fell on a Monday.
continuité: The kids disappear in May but the main story takes place in early to mid June, yet the kids are still in school, in Pensylvania, this would be around the time school ends.
erreur factuelle: The film is set in Pennsylvania where liquor can only be purchased in "State Stores". You can also buy wine in the state stores, but beer is purchased at package goods stores, bars or some supermarkets. Nowhere in PA can you buy liquor and beer at the same place.
erreur factuelle: Ms. Gandy's 3rd grade class is studying whales, as seen on the board in the back of the classroom. The board spells the toothed whale parvorder odontoceti incorrectly as "odontceti."
erreur géographique: In the finale, when Aunt Gladys is running, she passes a set of tall palm trees, which do not grow in Pennsylvania. There are also shots of tropical bushes in front of some of the homes, which would not survive the harsh winters.
trou dans l’intrigue: Amidst a major criminal investigation regarding an entire class of children that went missing save for one child, which even involves federal law enforcement agencies, nobody ever pays any attention whatsoever to the fact that the remaining child's story that his father recently had a stroke is not backed up by any medical records in any hospital, clinic or emergency services, nor does anybody working for any of those law enforcement agencies supposedly investigating the case ever attempt to secretly monitor the remaining child's home in case he might get abducted as well.
trou dans l’intrigue: If the FBI were involved in the investigation, there's no way any halfway competent investigation wouldn't consider the possibility that the children were meeting up. They would have attempted to identify which direction the children appeared to be running in, and they could have reconstructed a reasonable destination using the now ubiquitous door cam footage.
trou dans l’intrigue: If such an event had actually occurred, local, national, and international news teams and their transmission vans would have swarmed everyone and everything related to the event. They would have camped out on every home of every child, missing or not. No one involved would have been spared the gauntlet of the press.
Mentionné dans: Weapons | Official Trailer | Reaction! (The trailer for the movie is shown in the video.) , Weapons Trailer Is Eerie Melodic Horror (The trailer for the movie is shown in the video.) , Weapons Trailer 2 Is Horrifying (The trailer for the movie is shown in the video.)
