MovieChat Forums > Frailty (2002) Discussion > Was anyone else offended by this movie?

Was anyone else offended by this movie?

posted 20 years ago by mommaslittlemonkeyman
372 replies | jump to latest

I'll start off by saying that I thought this was a well shot, well acted film. I thought that it started off well. The backstory was suspensful and made you think "What if?".

The message that I got from the ending was that there really are demons and angels and that Adam and his father could see them. This is evident by the fact that as soon as Adam touched the agent, the agent could not defend himself and had succumbed to the "power of god", the fact that no one could see the faces on the tape, and could not recall Adam's face. Regardless of the fact of whether he and his father had made up the other backgrounds of the "demons", Adam was made to seem correct.

Is the director telling us that there are in fact, demons and angels? If so, this is not only unfulfilling and sanctimonious, but it is a real cheat for the script.

Please someone write whether I just got the wrong take on this movie and maybe I am incorrect, or if this what one was supposed to take this movie as...

[–] vontina69 17 years ago

Wasnt really offended by the movie just confused? How did the father know those visions were from God? Yes, those people did horrendous things but he supposedly acted on God's behalf if it was God.

[–] twilightfun 17 years ago

Yes, vontina69, taking out demons AT God's command, in the movie -- demons who'd otherwise look like regular people to folks who weren't "chosen." So your question is how he "knew?" Well, you have to see it from his perspective of faith. It's what the chosen followers -- ones who actually did what they were supposedly commanded to do -- believed in. He saw God telling him, guiding he and his sons; or at the least, it was what was "believed" to be God -- for sake of the picture's story.

Amazing how strong that is. Right? -- And to see it from the view of another, who's living a belief that you'd possibly not believe in yourself.

[–] Andrew-Parkinson-1 17 years ago

Guys, this movie was a movie. It is not a statement of perception of the truth, or some kind of real presentation of any kind of faith.

It was a great movie because it was well made, and contrary to most movies where the religious zealout is the nut and the bad guy, here they switched roles where the killer is the hero so to speak.

The reason this is great is it places the viewer in a wierd position where you like a really bad person.

And it makes statements about Armed conflict ( ie is a just cause good enough to warrant murder ) etc etc

I love the movie. It makes you feel something you dont like. Because it is something inside almost all people.

[–] jrireland 17 years ago

This is fiction. It isn't meant to be an accurate representation of the world.

[–] abramsailor79 17 years ago

I am a Christian myself, and I was not offended by the movie at all. It was a great movie. If this movie offended you does Buffy the vampire slayer offend you? Buffy killed vampires who were demons and looked like humans and she was a super hero. What’s the difference here other than this movie was filmed with a more gritty setting with a twist? The movie is obviously FICTIONAL and they were killing "demons" NOT evil people. I think this is a very excellent movie.

[–] LilTorch 17 years ago

I didn't feel like reading all the other posts, but I wanted to say this:

This movie made me think a lot.
I'm Christian and all that jazz, and I very much believe in a strong system of justice. What I want to communicate is that, for example, if I ever see an injustice being carried out I never stand idly by (ex: in a theft I chase the thief). In fact, I have such a belief in a sense of justice that I may go so far as to kill somebody who has brought wrong upon a great many people, simply so they don't continue causing this pain, and I very well may do so while claiming to do the work of God (by protecting his people).
I generally figure out movies before you're supposed to and this was no different. I knew the whole time that the father was 'right' about these people... and while my sense of justice had no problem with this, there was something inside of me that said, "Justice yes... but no, not like this."
I had a similar feeling with Clockwork Orange.

[–] Obnoxiously_Adorable 17 years ago

This thread is STILL around??

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAbump

sometimes what you learn gets in the way of what you know

[–] jinazaki 17 years ago

Apologies for dragging this thread out past the 3 year mark. However, being as how I'm stuck in the lab updating computers....

I'm not offended by the movie. I'm not a Christian, nor am I anti-Christian. I give them due respect as I do followers of other religions.

Honestly I was taken aback by the direction of the film where, not only it is saying there is a God and good and evil but there are also demons and it suggested some murderers may be doing good? Well, it's not a political diatribe so I look at the film as fiction with a challenging point of view.

Here's something else to chew on: If, by suggesting the existence of a God and demons, one should take offense, then we may have to rethink our position on the Omen, The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby.

[–] lil_gatsby-1 17 years ago

Odd how people see things so differently. I didn't think this movie was glorifying the killings at all. Whether or not anything supernatural is happening is ambiguous, but I didn't get the impression that Adam was supposed to be a hero. He's a psychotic killer, plain and simple.

The reason for this could be that the whole family is delusional. Whether Fenton, as an adult, really did kill anyone is left to question. The only person who makes the claim is Adam, and he can't be trusted. My theory is that Adam killed them all, using claims of "God" to manipulate his wife into helping him set up his final victim. He suffered severe religious abuse as a child which accounts for why he thinks he's "slaying demons," but he's also just a plain sociopath.

On the other hand, if there is a supernatural element to this movie, it's definitely not a loving presence. If there are demons and angels in this movie, then the father was very wrong about which of his sons was the demon. It also seems that the only true vision in the movie was Fenton's understanding that he had to kill his father to end the murders. Adam is the bad guy, all the way.

I like this movie, it's original, it felt something like what the Omen was trying to get across, but much more subtle and open-ended. I'm enjoying the different theories too. You know a thriller's done its job when it gets people talking.

[–] WireVille 17 years ago

So you explain a trained FBI agent not remembering or recognizing a man he saw just a couple days ago, and the surveillance tape mysteriously damaged to further impede Adam's recognition, as "ambiguous"?

---
"John, surfing, said to his mother, surfing beside him, 'How do you like surfing?'"

[–] ShadowsGathered 16 years ago

Good God... it's just a movie.

...Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster...

[–] Navaros 16 years ago

I was offended by the movie, and you weirdos can call me a demon as much as you like. And I can just think how people feel who have someone in the family killed by a serial killer. There are those people out there. Should they accept this movie as a piece of fiction? How about someone makes a movie about Holocaust, with a twist ending, all those Jews were in fact demons who deserved to be killed. Well, the director could always say it is a fiction. Or someone makes a movie about 9/11, where all those who died were demons. Would people be offended then?

This movie has a message that there are two kinds of serial killers. Those who are evil and those who are good. I refuse to believe that there are good serial killers, who do it in the name of God. And I am deeply religious person, and that is why I am offended. This is perversion of religion, and I think that those who are really religious people know that religion and God have to do with good things, not serial killing. Just as I am offended by Bin Laden when he says that killing of innocent people on 9/11 was God's will. Although it is clear that this movie promotes serial killing, I refuse to believe what it says. I don't want to accept that that lunatic father was really God's messenger, even in fictional terms. I still think that the older brother was right and innocent, and that he never killed anyone except his crazy father, and that the younger brother was a murderer of all those people. I repeat, the movie is not telling us this, but I don't care. From what I know, this movie could be demonic for perverting God like that.
What also shocked me is that the message of the movie is that it is o.k. to put your little son in a dungeon for weeks without food and water, for whatever twist predictable ending in the world.

Now, why would someone make a movie like this? Is it because Paxton (who also directed) wanted to make his character good after all? Or because someone wanted to make a movie with suprise ending, in the style of The Sixt Sense, but because of the lack of talent gave us the ending as cheep as it is? Are these people aware how immoral the message of this movie is, for the sake of sensation?

Just up until he kills the agent, I was of the opinion that I am watching one of the most intelligent horrors of recent years, but how I was wrong.

Now please someone tell me that this movie has an open ending, and that we were in Adams crazy mind, from the moment he kills the FBI agent, and that we were seeing his version of reality. I just hope it is like that, it would totally change my opinion of the movie. Even if there is a smallest hint at it, I am ready to believe it rather than the fact that there are filmakers either this evil, to make a movie that abolishes serial killing, or that there are film makers this stupid not to be aware of it. It would be all o.k. if this was a Buffy episode, which this movie would be if it didn't take itself so serious. I repeat, this movie implies that victims of serial killers deserved to die. And a serial killer is a metaphore for Christ (God's messenger). I would rather see a metaphore of Christ in a tortured boy than in a madman with the axe. That is why I cheered when the boy gave the old rat what he deserved. He is my hero. For me the movie ended there.

But then again, maybe the amorality of this movie is the point. Maybe that is the horror element of it. The scary part of it is that somebody decided to make a serious Buffy episode or a movie itself concieved in evil.

AND FINALY, TWO LARGE PLOT HOLES:
1)"Only The Innocent Survive" tag line doesn't make any sense, because, the old sherif was killed (it is confirmed that he was a human, not a demon). What is he then, a collateral damage? And on top of that, he didn't even have to die, because he wasn't believing the boy after all. Was it also God's will? This is either a plot hole or a hint that maybe majority of people are wrong by interpreting this movie and that the sides of good and evil are the opposite from what is suggested. And we never see the older boy kill anybody except his father. We know that he is a murderer only by Adam's story. I would like to believe this theory. It would make the move intelligent after all.
2) Why would a demon (FBI agent) want to capture another demon (older brother)? Wouldn't he try to cover him up, because they are on the same side? Buffy is more inteligent than this piece of garbage. Or maybe not?

They weren't killing people in this movie, they were only destroying demons. You keep referring to the demons in this movie as "people", but they were not people. Therefore, they were not serial killers since they didn't kill any people. Other than the Sheriff, which will be dealt with below.

You can't compare it to real-life because in real-life there are only people, not demons.

This movie doesn't imply any of the things you are claiming it implies.

The Sheriff thing is not a plothole. It is a matter of the Dad not having enough faith in God's plan. God was protecting the Dad while he was doing the right thing. The Sheriff was going to leave without investigating further. There was no need to kill the Sheriff, but the Dad made a mistake based on doubting God's plan due to his lack of faith. The Sheriff dying was not part of God's plan as laid out in the movie. The Dad violated God's plan and committed a very big sin when he did that. The Sheriff was not on the list. God did not authorize the Sheriff to die. The Dad did not have God's permission to kill the Sheriff. This may also tie into why the Dad died and God stopped protecting him, thus allowing that to happen. As punishment for doubting Him about his demon son, and for killing the Sheriff when he shouldn't have and didn't have permission to.

The other 'plothole' was probably just a matter of the demons not knowing each other.