FRAILTY

Most serial killers--the ones we know about, anyway--do their sinister work alone. But the killer in Frailty is different. He has help--in fact, he recruits his own young sons to assist him in locating, subduing, chopping up and, finally, burying his victims. This is not your usual grisly horror film. The gore here is not meant to be campy--as in, for example, that cult favorite, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Significantly, however, Frailty does take place in Texas. Matthew McConaughey plays the young man who shows up one night in the Dallas FBI office and introduces himself as Fenton Meiks. He'll speak only to Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe), who has been trying to solve a series of murders known as the 'God's Hand' case. Mieks says he knows who the murderer is: his recently dead brother, Adam.

The tortured tale of the Mieks family is told in flashbacks and voiceovers, as Doyle drives through a rainy night, taking Fenton to his hometown, a typical Texas backwater called Thurman. The boys' mother had died in a tragic accident in the late 1970s, and their Dad (Bill Paxton) at first had kept his small family functioning normally. Then, one night, Dad awoke the boys to tell them of the powerful vision he'd just experienced. An angel of God had appeared to him and instructed him to eliminate evil in the world. Specifically, he was told to find and kill the demons who've been living in central Texas disguised as ordinary folk.

Young Fenton (Matthew O'Leary) right away realizes his Dad has gone crazy, but is too fearful to speak up. His younger brother Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), is simply awed; he truly believes his father and accepts the idea that his 'holy' mission is to rid the world of evil. The first demon Dad brings into the backyard shed is a gagged and trussed-up middle-aged blonde in a nurse's uniform. With the victim frozen in fear, the kids watch incredulously as their father takes an axe to her skull. Then they help dig her grave in the public rose garden next to their house.

It gets worse. Dad becomes increasingly zealous in his pursuit of demons, and increasingly convinced of the righteousness of his calling. Stupified by the particularly brutal taunting of one of the 'demons,' Fenton runs to the local sheriff and tells him everything. But the sheriff doesn't believe him, and returns Fenton to his father. Which is the last mistake the lawman will ever make. As punishment, Dad (the only name he's known by) throws Fenton into a dirt cellar, effectively burying him alive until such time as his son can 'talk to God' and see the error of his ways.

In this mesmerizing film's jumble of flashbacks and flashforwards, it eventually becomes clear that the Mieks family's fanatical mission did not end with the father's murderous rampage 20 years before. In fact, the horror accelerates--growing more complex (and confusing) as the forces of 'good' and 'evil' finally battle it out in a Texas rose garden.

Although Frailty fits into a classic genre, in its script and execution it is a remarkably original work. Also, in addition to his fine acting here, Paxton proves to be a remarkably skillful director--especially in the emotionally charged performances he coaxes out of his two child actors. However, despite the admirable efforts of everyone concerned, the subject matter here--the complicity of children in the act of murder--makes Frailty an extremely unsettling movie. It may even shock the most horror-hardened of moviegoers.

--Shirley Sealy