Demons and axes and gloves, oh my! This can sum up the movie “Frailty,” along with a more than usual dysfunctional family.
This is actor Bill Paxton’s directing debut, he also stars in this movie and decided that twisters were not quite scary enough.
The movie starts with an apparently ideal family, the Meiks: Dad, played by Paxton, and his two sons, played by child actors Matthew O’Leary and Jeremy Sumpter.
But everything abruptly sours when Dad is supposedly visited by an angel that tells him his mission from God is to kill demons who are disguised as people.
He receives three weapons to help him do this: an ax, gloves and a lead pipe.
But instead of doing his dirty deeds in the library with the candlestick, he takes the bodies into a cellar he has his older son dig in the backyard, which by the way, was punishment for not going happily along with the killings.
All this is fine, and the movie builds up large amounts of psychological suspense. Most of the killings are done offscreen, keeping the film suprisingly bloodshed-free. It doesn’t help that they bury all bodies in the Rose Garden Cemetery, conveniently located right behind their home.
The child actors are good, and don’t strain to emote, but are quite natural.
The film also shows just where people can be led by their own blind faith, and how they will sacrifice anything for a cause, even family.
The whole movie is told in flashback sequence, as one brother, all grown up, relates his story to an FBI agent.
However, at the end the movie suggests that maybe Dad was right in killing the people, or at least attempting to seek justice.