MovieChat Forums > Frailty (2002) Discussion > Demons vs. sinners

Demons vs. sinners

posted 10 years ago by Mr_Ectoplasma
4 replies | jump to latest

From a theological standpoint, I (as well as many other people who have seen this movie) struggle to make sense of what exactly constitutes a "demon" in the context of the film. We are given flashbacks that show the horrible acts that Dad/Adam's victims apparently committed— all of them were murder (as well as rape for the pedophile/child killer). This is where things get foggy for me though in terms of what the subtext here is actually implying.

I was raised Catholic, and to my understanding, demons are inhuman and entirely separate from man. They are evil and have the capacity only to do evil. What I didn't understand about this film was that the line between mortal sinner and demon is indefinitely blurred. Yes, all of the people that Dad/Adam "destroyed" had committed horrible murders, but what about that makes them "demonic"? Some have argued that the implication is that some people are simply born evil, that they're bad— they're demonic— and those are the "demons" who Dad/Adam were assigned by God to destroy. The problem I have with this is that, although these people committed awful crimes against other humans, they are in fact still human themselves; they show no signs of being quote-unquote demonic according to the terms of demonology, but rather people who committed grave sins against their fellow man.

Is the film attempting to reconfigure the term "demon"? Is it positing that actual "demons" are merely those humans who commit grave sins against others? The writer's treatment of this term is my only real gripe with this movie, as I found it on the whole well-shot and utterly captivating— I'm just very confused in regard to what it is attempting to say about the nature of demons.

[–] supermutantvirus 10 years ago

I think there is some ambiguity here.
My interpretation of demons vs sinners would be a sense of guilt and malice.

Ending others life for, what you think is for the good, may seem evil to others. As by my interpretation though they would be sinners if they were subjectible for being wrong.

I find it hard to describe evil. Could some 'warped' validation redeem actions. Hot topic in nowadays affairs. Myself, I find it immoral to destroy life.

I am raised agnostic btw.

[–] ForensicMovies 10 years ago

I understand the ambiguity between sinners v demons, but I think you might be looking at the movie in the "real world" scenario. When I first saw it, as the movie went along, I thought it was grounded in the "real world" too, but the movie clearly indicates a supernatural spin.
When the father touches the victims and he "sees" what they did, so does Adam. The problem with the video being blurred out also proves the "god will protect me" theme in the movie that protects the dad from getting caught as a serial killer.
So considering all those things, the "people" he was killing, in a supernatural context, weren't really people, but actual demons that were on Earth disguised as people. So he really was killing demons.

[–] judsonkr 9 years ago

We are given flashbacks that show the horrible acts that Dad/Adam's victims apparently committed

No "apparently" to it. They really did what he "saw" them do.

And the answer to your question is very simple.

The difference?

EVERYONE is a sinner.

Demons are evil. They do not have to meet any physical, Exorcist, type requirements. Our understanding of demon may be too literal.

Maybe Dad didn't really have any other way to articulate what these people were than to call them demons.

"When all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done."

[–] johnmkirby 8 years ago

I think this distinction between a demon and a sinner is a good one, and this is very problematic for the movie. The movie really gives no indication that these people are demons. Rather, they simply seem to be flawed individuals. These people don't have horns, don't speak in tongues, don't have special powers, etc. They are apparently more flawed than most people, but under traditional religious doctrine, everyone is flawed and everyone is a sinner; we have all fallen; the modern message is one of redemption. And the acts committed by these people are no different than wrongful acts committed by humans (not demons) throughout history and across societies. If we are to simply believe that these people are demons (and not mere sinners), then we must accept the father's vision. That view is, however, likewise problematic. First, the angel apparently told the father that all of them would be able to see the demons, but the elder son clearly did not see the demons. (Per the movie, even when he did kill, he killed real people, and not demons; so his demon-vision must not be working.) (One can say that he did not have "faith" and this caused his lack of vision, but shouldn't the angel have foreseen this?) Second, the father and younger son are apparently protected by God (e.g. no witnesses to incidents, video tape getting deleted), but the father was not protected from the elder son. (I'm assuming here that it was not part of a greater plan that the demon-slayer have an axe thrust into his chest. If we go down that road, then perhaps it was the greater plan that the local sheriff arrest the father for the murders, rather than having the father kill an innocent human.) If the purpose of the special weapons and names was to kill mere people (sinners), then the movie makes no sense; this is at odds with all modern religious teaching; and further there is nothing new about mere sinners. (The movie suggests that there is some sort of impending battle between good and evil; not merely the age-old struggle of good versus evil.) If the movie had given us any sense that these people were demons (e.g. if their appearance changed to the father or younger son, or if they had turned to ashes upon being killed), then that would be an entirely different story. I thought the story had a lot of good twists available at the end, but this one does not make sense. A somewhat more logical interpretation of the movie would be that the father and the younger son were demons (or afflicted by demons) (shown by e.g. their ability to see past conduct, and in the protection afforded to them), but this would take a great leap,and would raise other problems.