"I see demon people..."

The late Bill Paxton's "Frailty" continues the trend of the sudden twist and unreliable narrator that was all the rage for a few years starting in the mid-1990s--a period marked by twisty movies like "The Usual Suspects," "Seven," "The Sixth Sense" and "Memento." "Frailty" tries to top them by offering at least four major twists that occur before the end of the film. Here's a recap of our group's verbal examination of this picture:

WHAT 4 TWISTS OCCUR BY THE END OF THE FILM?

• The son kills the father

• The confessor reveals that he’s really the younger son, Adam

• The film suggests that Adam has a supernatural gift for identifying demons, if indeed that gift exists

• The film suggests that the vicious cycle of violence passed on to the younger generation will continue, as Adam’s wife is expecting a child

WHAT THEMES ARE EXPLORED IN FRAILTY?

• Corruption of the innocent

• The sins of the father are visited upon the son.

• The capacity for good people to do evil things and claim good intentions.

• Whom are we to trust? Can we trust ourselves or the people we love? 

WHAT CHOICES DO THE FILMMAKERS MAKE TO HELP CREATE SUSPENSE AND AVOID HORROR MOVIE CLICHES?

• The film breeds doubt and uncertainty in the viewer: Is this going to be a supernatural thriller in which the murdered victims actually are demons, and God truly is directing the father to kill? We are left in suspense about this. Consider what Roger Ebert suggests here: “When Dad touches his victims, he has graphic visions of their sins--he can see vividly why they need to be killed. Are these visions accurate? We see them, too, but it's unclear whether through Dad's eyes or the movie's narrator--if that makes a difference. Whether they are objectively true is something I, at least, believe no man can know for sure about another. Not just by touching them, anyway. But the movie contains one shot, sure to be debated, that suggests God's hand really is directing Dad's murders.”

• The film ultimately employs a Rashomon-type effect whereby we can’t trust what we’ve seen or heard, and the nature of objective reality is in doubt.

• Also, the characters don’t know any more than we do, so we relate better to them and they become more sympathetic.

• We can identify with and sympathize with the father: he’s a widower raising two boys, he’s a good father to them, and he isn’t depicted as a monstrous villain—he seems genuine, authentic, rational and honest, but obsessed and possibly mentally disturbed. In many horror films, good people who turn bad often act in very stereotypical fashion: as cartoonishly unhinged and violently insane. We also aren’t given any hints that dad is psychologically deranged—there’s not mention of a previous history of mental illness, for example.

• Also, most of the gruesome violence occurs off-screen; yes, we do hear axe hit flesh and bone and see some blood, but there is no gore or gratuitous violence in this movie. That being said, the film does linger on the killings and their effects on the children. Why? “Paxton wants us to feel the moral weight of the murders his character commits, which is probably why he shows those killings to us in such detail, as well as focusing on the boys’ terrified faces as they’re forced to watch or, worse, participate,” noted Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek.

• Ultimately, what raises this film above a standard horror movie are the moral questions it raises and the battle of faith it depicts between a son and father. 

WHY IS BILL PAXTON AN IDEAL CASTING CHOICE FOR THE FATHER AND, ARGUABLY, AN IDEAL CHOICE AS DIRECTOR FOR THIS FILM?

• Paxton has a believable, sympathetic, earnest face that helps viewers identify with him and buy into his performance.

• We also know him primarily for protagonist roles where he usually plays a good-hearted, honest everyman. He brings that baggage with him to this role, and it causes beautiful conflict in us because we want to believe him, or we don’t believe him but still possibly sympathize with him.

• “Perhaps only a first-time director, an actor who does not depend on directing for his next job, would have had the nerve to make this movie. It is uncompromised. It follows its logic right down into hell,” wrote Roger Ebert, who gave the film a four-star review.

OTHER FILMS THAT REMIND US OF “FRAILTY”:

• Rashomon, another movie that prevents alternate points of view and you can’t trust what you see

• The Usual Suspects, which also had a similar twist ending

• The Rapture, and Wise Blood, two other pictures about religious fundamentalism

• Breaking the Waves, which suggests miracles in vague terms and you can’t necessarily trust what you see

• The Prophecy, which also suggests violent angels

• The Devil Inside, Fallen, and Identity, also about serial killers and/or demonic possession

• Natural Born Killers

• The Dead Zone

OTHER PROMINENT FILMS STARRING BILL PAXTON:

• A Simple Plan

• Apollo 13

• Aliens

• Titanic

• Twister

• True Lies