Amy Madigan’s ‘Weapons’ Oscar Win Is the First Performance To Achieve This Feat in 58 Years

Amy Madigan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her turn as Aunt Gladys in Zach Cregger’s horror film Weapons. The actor, long known for roles in films such as Field of Dreams and Gone Baby Gone, transformed herself into a chilling antagonist whose performance quickly became a favorite with both audiences and voters.

Her win is the first time in 58 years that a horror performance has taken home the Supporting Actress Oscar, matching the precedent set by Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s Baby. In Weapons, Aunt Gladys moves in with the Lilly family under the pretense of caring for their young son, Alex, while his parents are ill.

As the town of Maybrook searches for 17 missing children, it becomes clear Gladys is a parasitic witch who controls people by possessing something of theirs; she coerces Alex and intends to drain the children’s life force to preserve her own. Madigan’s still, calculating menace and slightly heightened domestic affect make a kindly relative into something deeply unsettling.

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