Movie Review: Frailty (warning: spoilers)
Don't you hate it when a superlatively scary movie, a real creep-a-thon goes south in the third act? Don't you hate it that right when your heart is slick against the walls of your ribcage from the cold sweat of sheer dread, something dumb happens? Don't see Frailty then. It's got a doozy of a third act that will leave you throwing whatever is handy at the screen. If it doesn't, then I'm throwing whatever's handy at you.
Frailty is a movie directed by actor Bill Paxton (who also stars). It's about a faithful man in Texas who, one night, starts seeing things. Big things. Like angels telling him to go and kill demons masquerading as people. Now, this father is a good egg, a salt of the earth type with two growing boys and no wife around to round things out. He's got some issues, but is a loving guy and then one night he sees angels telling him that his family is now going to go out and seek retribution for God's sake on the sinners of the world. This will be accomplished by God sending him three weapons: an axe (the nasty kind, big with double edges), a thick lead pipe, and workman's gloves to keep his hands away from the flesh of the demons.
Now, in another director's hands, this could be played for camp. However, Frailty plays it straight up (minus an overzealous atmospheric score which turns some scenes into drive-in level drama). At this level, Frailty is absolutely one of the all-time creepiest, keep-the-radio-on-when-you-go-to-bed type movies out there. Bill Paxton (the vision-seeing Dad) enlists the help of his two sons in defeating the demons. This includes pitching in with the dismemberment and burial of the corpses, the building of a below-ground dungeon, etc. Truly horrific stuff, because at no time does Paxton act nuts - just a man who believes he's been trusted with a higher meaning in life. Compare it to the level of belief a soldier has in going to war for his country and you're in the right ballpark. He still calls his kids "buddy" and "champ", while instructing them that they have to empty the body parts out of the big garbage bag first into the gravesite, not just heave the whole sack in at once.
At this point in the movie, Frailty is skin-crawlingly effective. All the unpleasantness is told by Matthew McConaghey in flashback as he's sitting in the FBI Office telling them he knows who someone named the God's Hands Killer is that they have been investigating.
But then, the third act starts and everything goes to shit. Turns out that old Dad said that he could see the sins of the demons when he took the workgloves off and touched his victims prior to dismembering them. One of his sons says he can as well. The movie plays this as if it was a symptom of insanity in the father, and a symptom of a boy's need for his father's attention in the son. But the third act throws in the surprise that it's actually true. There's a long sequence where the audience gets to see all the sins of the people who have been killed thusfar. And in one stupendously irritating and ridiculous scene, the FBI agent himself is a demon, as the boy (McConaghey) is grown up and, having lured the agent out to the burial site, lays hands on him and finds out the agent actually killed HIS OWN mother with a big knife while she was doing laundry out in the yard!
At this point, the movie is useless. Utterly simplistic and moronic. It plays out the string, now with the audience having this unsettling feeling that they're rooting for a serial-murdering family. The FBI agent is done in, buried and in the next and final scene, Matthew McConaghey is somehow now a sheriff in a town where the FBI agent's partner is investigating his sidekick's sudden disappearance. We are left with Sheriff McC's final pronouncement that "God's Will Has Been Done", while he stands on the street holding hands with his pregnant wife (all the while with silly choir-laden drive-in scary music playing in the background for atmosphere).
They took a great idea in this film (what might a regular, God-fearing Joe do when he's visited in the night by the Angel of Death with a mission for him, and has two young kids sleeping in the next room), plays that idea out in graphic, unsettling form as seriously as can be done, and then sabotages it utterly with goofy, "it's all true, see?" melodrama.
If you like good, freaky, Oh -God-not-THAT type movies, rent this and then stop watching after the agent and McConaghey get to the Rose Garden. You'll be left with a tight chest and shivers for days. If you like silly and pandering horror movies, keep watching and get ready to laugh. This turkey does a massive bellyflop into the Baby Ruth end of the Movie Pool and leaves you pissed off and totally cheated. Kidlets, you have been warned.
Frailty is a movie directed by actor Bill Paxton (who also stars). It's about a faithful man in Texas who, one night, starts seeing things. Big things. Like angels telling him to go and kill demons masquerading as people. Now, this father is a good egg, a salt of the earth type with two growing boys and no wife around to round things out. He's got some issues, but is a loving guy and then one night he sees angels telling him that his family is now going to go out and seek retribution for God's sake on the sinners of the world. This will be accomplished by God sending him three weapons: an axe (the nasty kind, big with double edges), a thick lead pipe, and workman's gloves to keep his hands away from the flesh of the demons.
Now, in another director's hands, this could be played for camp. However, Frailty plays it straight up (minus an overzealous atmospheric score which turns some scenes into drive-in level drama). At this level, Frailty is absolutely one of the all-time creepiest, keep-the-radio-on-when-you-go-to-bed type movies out there. Bill Paxton (the vision-seeing Dad) enlists the help of his two sons in defeating the demons. This includes pitching in with the dismemberment and burial of the corpses, the building of a below-ground dungeon, etc. Truly horrific stuff, because at no time does Paxton act nuts - just a man who believes he's been trusted with a higher meaning in life. Compare it to the level of belief a soldier has in going to war for his country and you're in the right ballpark. He still calls his kids "buddy" and "champ", while instructing them that they have to empty the body parts out of the big garbage bag first into the gravesite, not just heave the whole sack in at once.
At this point in the movie, Frailty is skin-crawlingly effective. All the unpleasantness is told by Matthew McConaghey in flashback as he's sitting in the FBI Office telling them he knows who someone named the God's Hands Killer is that they have been investigating.
But then, the third act starts and everything goes to shit. Turns out that old Dad said that he could see the sins of the demons when he took the workgloves off and touched his victims prior to dismembering them. One of his sons says he can as well. The movie plays this as if it was a symptom of insanity in the father, and a symptom of a boy's need for his father's attention in the son. But the third act throws in the surprise that it's actually true. There's a long sequence where the audience gets to see all the sins of the people who have been killed thusfar. And in one stupendously irritating and ridiculous scene, the FBI agent himself is a demon, as the boy (McConaghey) is grown up and, having lured the agent out to the burial site, lays hands on him and finds out the agent actually killed HIS OWN mother with a big knife while she was doing laundry out in the yard!
At this point, the movie is useless. Utterly simplistic and moronic. It plays out the string, now with the audience having this unsettling feeling that they're rooting for a serial-murdering family. The FBI agent is done in, buried and in the next and final scene, Matthew McConaghey is somehow now a sheriff in a town where the FBI agent's partner is investigating his sidekick's sudden disappearance. We are left with Sheriff McC's final pronouncement that "God's Will Has Been Done", while he stands on the street holding hands with his pregnant wife (all the while with silly choir-laden drive-in scary music playing in the background for atmosphere).
They took a great idea in this film (what might a regular, God-fearing Joe do when he's visited in the night by the Angel of Death with a mission for him, and has two young kids sleeping in the next room), plays that idea out in graphic, unsettling form as seriously as can be done, and then sabotages it utterly with goofy, "it's all true, see?" melodrama.
If you like good, freaky, Oh -God-not-THAT type movies, rent this and then stop watching after the agent and McConaghey get to the Rose Garden. You'll be left with a tight chest and shivers for days. If you like silly and pandering horror movies, keep watching and get ready to laugh. This turkey does a massive bellyflop into the Baby Ruth end of the Movie Pool and leaves you pissed off and totally cheated. Kidlets, you have been warned.
posted by Stefush at 8:14 PM
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