Frailty (2001)

 

Frailty (2001)

 

You may not be aware of this, but one of the very first novels written and published in the USA was a Horror tale, and depending on your definition of a novel, it might have been the very first. “Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale,” by Charles Brockden Brown (1798) suffers today because of changes in style and acceptable contrivances, but it is still chilling.

 

I bring it up only because it had on obvious influence on this film. It is entirely possible that Script Writer, Brent Hanley, was unaware of this work as the novel’s themes have never receded from our cultural consciousness -- that rural isolation can warp one’s reality and that religious rapture is not necessarily a good thing – but both this old novel, and the not-so-old film, are about good men driven to depravity when they become convinced God is speaking to them. This is certainly not a rare theme, but the link between these two specifically in the thematic power, while in many other fictions these ideas are little more than an off-handed and exploitive jokes.

 

Both the novel and the film clearly struggled with their resolutions, and both have problematic surprise endings. With “Wieland …” the ending is awfully bad, but inconsequential. With “Frailty” it is powerful, but for me, personally offense, and for everyone else, engendering some plot-holes. To avoid spoilers, I will not go into further detail – with both novel and film, it is everything that comes before the end is what really counts.

 

The late Bill Paxton was a much-respected Actor before, and after, this film; this was his debut as a Director, and he also starred. The chances he took here were enormous, but in the eyes of some Critics obvious, or as Roger Ebert wrote, “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. We love movies that play and toy with the supernatural, but are we prepared for one that is an unblinking look at where the logic of the true believer can lead?”

 

It starts in the FBI office of Dallas, Texas, just before the end of normal business hours. Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) comes and insists he must speak to Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) to provide vital information about the most important open case, the "God's Hand" serial killings. Wesley is initially dismissive, so Fenton forces the Agent to listen to his whole life story before the key revelation. Fenton is essentially the film’s narrator, and Actor McConaughey delivers it in a shell-shocked monotone far removed from most of his other roles.

 

What follows is a tale going back decades, and involves a loving single-father of two, never referred to as anything but “Dad” (that’s Paxton’s character). One night Dad wakes both his boys an tells them that an Angel had visited him, and gave him a mission to save the whole of the human race by killing Demons disguised as humans. After that, the two boys’ lives become a living Hell.

So, we have a story of an appealing, but terrifying, up-dating of Joan of Arc (a Saint because she heard God’s voice, proved a tremendously effective military leader, but executed in 1431, before her twentieth-birthday, because the guys on the other side of the battle-lines figured anyone opposed to them and hearing the voice of God must really be listening to Satan). Despite the body count, the violence is almost entirely off-screen, so, this film’s Horror is about twisted love, and how a parent, whose grip on reality is suddenly eroding, controls the reality of his innocent children. Richard Scheib put it well, describing the film as a “battle of faith between father and son … made all the more disquieting by the alarmingly patient and rational everyday performance given by Paxton himself as the boy’s father.”

 

Though Paxton and McConaughey are the film’s star-power, the backbone of this film is the children, especially the younger version of Fenton (Matthew O'Leary), who loves his father dearly, but is old enough to realize that God telling Dad to kill people is deranged. Meanwhile, younger Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) is adoring of his father, and easily made a true believer. Fenton is hesitant to stop the madness because he loves his Dad too much, and though he’s desperate to extricate Adam from this madness, his every attempt is blocked by Adam’s blind faith.

 

(Note: the young-boys Acting Coach, Vincent Chase, also plays one of the God’s Hand Victims).

 

There are very few FX scenes, and the first revelation from God is not shown at all. But the scene wherein Dad speaks of this revelation to his sons is expertly composed (Cinematography by Bill Butler and Editing by Arnold Glassman). Fenton is in one bed, Adam in the other. It intercuts between the two beds, with Adam clinging to his father, but Fenton alone. When the camera is trained on Adam and Dad is draws back, slowly, almost un-noticeably, establishing the divide emerging in the previously happy family.

 

Only with the second murder, already half-way through the film’s running time, does Fenton definitely rebel. He reports the Horror to the Sheriff Smalls (Luke Askew), who doesn’t believe a word of it, but even that level of exposure is too much for Dad. Dad kills the Sheriff, and is truly remorseful, because in his mind, unlike the prior two killings, the Sheriff was human, not a Demon in human clothing. Still, Dad is confident God will forgive this one necessity-driven violation, and blames Fenton for the killing more than himself. It is only then that Dad crosses to line into direct, physically abusive, behavior.

 

Released just after 9/11, it was certainly ill-timed. It is a tale of religious fanaticism that became murderous, but also asks you to be sympathetic to the fanatic. Other than being a burgeoning Serial Killer, and trying to convert his kids to the same, the Dad character is everything that one would want a good father to be, and that is the creepiest part of the film. This is about Christianity instead of Islam, but the audience’s repugnance must have been just the same: In the Real World, the same year this movie was released, Christian Televangelists who made of career out of blaming every hurricane and earthquake on God’s wrath over Feminism and Homosexuality tried to make the same claims regarding the Terrorist attacks, but were forced to publicly back-track because even in the rottenest and most hate-driven parts of the USA, that was a Bridge Too Far. 

 

The film ultimately, barely, broke even for production costs, when things like marketing are worked in, it was a money loser. This is a shame, because it’s a distinctive work, far removed from that year’s mostly unambitious and redundant Horror fare. The film plays turns the familiar dark with ironies that are cruel and effective. There’s a clip of the Children’s Religious TV show I grew up with, “Davy and Goliath” (first aired in 1961), and later in the film there was one of Johnny Cash’s religious tunes, “Peace in the Valley” (actually written by Thomas A. Dorsey, first recorded in 1939 by Mahalia Jackson, but Cash’s version is from.1962). Paxton’s Direction isn’t flashy, nor should it be, and Hanely shows remarkable assurance for a first-time Screen Writer.

 

It is a seriously under-appreciated work.

 

Trailer:

Frailty (2001) - Trailer - YouTube