#frailty

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres: southern gothic

[filmreveries]

“Sometimes truth defies reason.”

Frailty (2001) dir. Bill Paxton

[classichorrorblog]

10 Overlooked 2000s Horror Movies To Consider For October/Halloween

[lemonadeslice]

siblings in horror: damned edition

jug face | the others | the lodge | frailty

codependent | blood-soaked | haunted | ride-or-die | dumb-ass

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[saintanhedonia]

i got the best pictures I could from JRJRJR MV and edited them (no hate cuz this is my first time editing pictures 🙁)

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[baddingtonbitch]

Frailty (2001) dir. Bill Paxton

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ph Stine Loe

humancanvas232 (ig)

petite fleur

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search party

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[valleyfthdolls]

@penny-fitzgeraldz underrated Faz Frights yuri ships

[sloshed-cinema]

Frailty (2001)

A simple plate of shelled green peas, macaroni and cheese, and chicken sounds like a terribly bland meal, but it’s omnipresent in Hollywood as shorthand for the classic dinner of a well-adjusted family. It evokes the 1950s when things were stable and safe in a Wonderbread sort of way. This too seems to be the case with the Meiks family, a widower raising his two sons in a simple but loving environment. But things aren’t always as they appear on the surface. This might be like the 50s, but more in the sense of a rich environment of religious conservatism, here elevated to the point of radical fundamentalism. Despite the seemingly Silence of the Lambs tier implications of the crime scene photos and newspaper headlines of the opening credits sequence, Frailty is a remarkably economical story, unfolding largely in extended flashbacks as one of the Meiks boys who has come to confess his family’s involvement in a series of horrific killings dubbed the “God’s Hand Murders.” Swept up in fervor over the imminent End Times and his role as a demon-slayer, Papa Mieks begins killing people from a list he claims to have received from an angel. Younger son Adam goes along willingly while Fenton is more resistant. It’s a cornily grim affair through and through, recounting the toll on the family and the boys’ sanity as the body count mounts. Whether Pop’s visions are psychosis or divinely motivated remain ambiguous for much of the film, but in its conclusion, the narrative stumbles a little. Yearning for a twist, the man who came to confess is revealed to be the opposite son than one might expect, and he experiences the same visions as his father, knowing on touch the content of a person’s character. Is this real? Is it a delusion? The film doesn’t desire to answer that definitively, but one thing’s for sure: the thought of a sheriff with a god complex even more comprehensive than the one some of those folks are prone to have is an unsettling one.

With his directorial debut, Bill Paxton seeks to make a statement about passage of time within his narrative. As it jumps between time points or leaps from the kidnapping of a victim to their violent demise, match cuts are used thoroughly. Occasionally this happens to mildly comedic effect, with Fenton’s aghast face becoming some sort of gargoyle lion creature in the rose garden where the victims’ bodies are buried. But elsewhere it’s admittedly clever: rain streaking across a windshield on FBI Agent Wesley Doyle’s car seamlessly transitions into static on a television screen. While he doesn’t achieve the sort of dreariness in this film that might have been achieved in the hands of a Fincher type, it’s still a committed effort, and gives us a taste of what Matthew McConnaughey would achieve in “True Detective.”

THE RULES

PICK ONE

Select either GOD, DEMON, or ANGEL and sip whenever that word is spoken.

SIP

Someone says 'God's Hand' or 'dream'.

Young Meiks tells his dad not to do something.

BIG DRINK

Someone experiences a vision.

Dad Meiks lays hands on a victim.

[finemaleactors]

Bill Paxton in Frailty