MovieChat Forums > Frailty (2002) Discussion > My Problem with the Ending

My Problem with the Ending

posted 12 years ago by mulotmick-1
115 replies | jump to latest

Just my thoughts on the film, and particularly the "twist" at the end.

I thought that until the ending, this was an absolutely terrifying, yet very intelligent horror movie. The theme of religious delusion taken to an extreme - and passed on to young children (aka Adam) who can't know any better - is chilling. The fact the Bill Paxton's character thinks he is doing Good, and forces his children to be complicit, while being objectively insane, is what makes this so disturbing.

Now towards the end of the film come two surprises (from my understanding on 1st viewing):

1) the grown brother telling the story is actually Adam, who has continued his father's legacy of killing demons, and is using this as a means to capture the FBI guy, his next victim.

2) And here i where I have a problem - we are SHOWN (for the first time) the vision of the "demon's" evil doings, which are then CONFIRMED by the FBI guy. In other words, we are pretty much being told that the Demons are real, and that father and son are following God's Will.
There is little ambiguity here - we even get flashbacks to the father's "visions" - now apparently only not shown before to preserve the "twist"...

Basically, I found this left turn to be very ineffective in that it goes against the feel of the whole rest of the film. Frailty has been showing us religious fanaticism, and remained grounded in reality - even Paxton's vision of the angel is filmed in a way that strongly suggests it is taking place in his mind. But at the end, the story's narrative swerves into the supernatural, telling us: "TWIST, The Father WAS killing demons all along...". By this logic, not only is this (to an extent) justifying the killings we have witnessed, it is also just a plain ridiculous direction for the film to take: both to me, as a non-believer, from an external perspective, but also by the film's own inner logic, contradicting established tones and themes. In other words, the film shoots itself in the foot a little.

Final thoughts: I'd almost like to think that despite these points at the end, there is still enough ambiguity to think that there was objectively no Hand of God or Demons...however the film just seems to tell us otherwise. Lastly, even with this twist, the ending (Adam just a regular all-American guy just like his dad...) is still disturbing - as if the filmmakers wanted to leave us with the tone they have established for most of the film, if only they hadn't somewhat sabotaged it towards the end...

Thoughts? Please let me know if you think I'm reading something wrong, or disagree, anything! :)

[–] filmmekker 11 years ago

I'm shocked so many people agree with the OP! The twist, that the father was not crazy, was brilliant. It was great misdirection. Are people really that upset a horror movie veered into the supernatural?

Open the door for Mr. Muckle!!

[–] pappaus 11 years ago

I love this movie and I loved the ending. In most of the movie we are questioning the various people. Is Bill Paxton crazy? Is there something wrong with Adam that he claims to see? Once we get the big reveal, there is seemingly no doubt that there is a supernatural force at work. The security recordings, people forgetting grown up Adam, and also the power that stuns the demons when they are touched by Bill Paxton and Adam.

At this point, the questioning moves from the people/demons to God and the Devil. Is this really god's will or just a trick by the devil pretending to be god? And if it god's work, what kind of god works this way. Is it right to test Bill Paxton in a way where god must know he will fail by asking him to kill his own child. (He is thwarted by the love for his children - a love that would come from god in the first place.) The narration states that god forgave abraham, but not bill paxton. Of course in the interim between abraham and bill paxton's character, god gave up his own son and I guess expects anybody else to do the same.

There is no limit to the questions this movie asks. If the film had ended without the reveal and just shown Adam and Fenton to have become two different kinds of serial killers, the film would have still been good, but would have had none of the resonance that it has.

[–] filmmekker 11 years ago

I agree except I don't think it was ever implied it was the Devil. It was the God of the Old Testament, who is not really a very nice God. Even if it were the Devil impersonating God, what kind of all powerful God would allow that to happen? No, it's the same God who drowned the people of Earth for their human failings.

Open the door for Mr. Muckle!!

[–] first-things-first 11 years ago

Every time I watch this, I am remembered that God can be vengeful. The movie is excellent for believers and non-believers. And I agree with your interpretation of the film.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

[–] AceRoccola 10 years ago

So vengeful that he manipulates children into murdering their fathers just to teach a lesson about obedience. To...the dead father?

Not just vengeful, but also kind of dumb, this God.

[–] first-things-first 10 years ago

I believe there are some that are chosen to do his work. So if the boss tells you to do something and you don't, there are consequences. The rest of us have our free will to guide us. God is every emotion we are, and forgives us because of that. i will follow God until I die, and also obey when this life is done.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

[–] jimmysmitsimdb 10 years ago

So vengeful that he manipulates children into murdering their fathers just to teach a lesson about obedience. To...the dead father?

Did you even watch the movie?

[–] Milkyway123 10 years ago

by filmmekker

I'm shocked so many people agree with the OP! The twist, that the father was not crazy, was brilliant. It was great misdirection. Are people really that upset a horror movie veered into the supernatural?

A twist for the sake of a twist is cheap.

[–] jack-crow 10 years ago

A twist for the sake of a twist is cheap.

And your implication that such is the case here makes a lazy reply .

[–] jmichael3387 11 years ago

The ending was utterly fantastic.

Damn, one of the best endings I've EVER seen. Up until that point, the movie was okay, but I thought it got slightly repetitive. But after seeing the ending, it was all worth it.

Don't anyone say they could see THAT coming LOL! Don't even try!

The demons were real. The father and youngest son were really doing the right thing. Wow. Now would God really instruct us to do something like that? Perhaps, perhaps not...perhaps to a lesser extent...but I'm okay with it. As for the atheists who LOVE to mock religious fanatics....yeah some of them deserve it. But there's plenty of other boring movies to have-at-it. Most believers don't deserve to be mocked. So just enjoy the movie and the ending for what it was.

[–] frumwannabe 11 years ago

The movie title, "Frailty", deals exactly with this indistinct division between Good (killing demons) and Bad (killing people and justifying it by claiming they were demons only you could detect).

Adam/Fenton has already proven himself an unreliable narrator, so we don't have to believe his visions even when they are shown on screen towards the end. Maybe he imagines them or is lying.

The possibility of error begins early in the movie, when young Adam puts his enemy from school on his own kill list. Dad points out the name was not a divine revelation, merely a personal wish disguised as one.

How are we supposed to see the murder of the sherrif who tries to help young Fenton? In previous executions, God has protected Dad and sons from even being noticed; but in this instance, Dad takes action of his own. Wouldn't God have protected Dad from having his holy mission ended prematurely? Or is Dad wrong for refusing to accept that his mission from God is over and murdering to protect himself? Does Dad become a demon by disobeying God's command?

Are demons born that way or are they humans who allowed themselves to slip into evildoing?

The ending is particularly creepy, as the small town sherrif is shown to have a devoted follower in his wife, and however many children they may have.

A movie similar to this one is "Red State" (2011). Both movies shake my faith in our judicial system as well as religious faith.

[–] jimmysmitsimdb 11 years ago

Adam/Fenton has already proven himself an unreliable narrator, so we don't have to believe his visions even when they are shown on screen towards the end. Maybe he imagines them or is lying.

Well, I would agree with you except for the tape. The tape is the once piece of hard evidence that proves the narrator is telling the truth.

How are we supposed to see the murder of the sherrif who tries to help young Fenton? In previous executions, God has protected Dad and sons from even being noticed; but in this instance, Dad takes action of his own. Wouldn't God have protected Dad from having his holy mission ended prematurely? Or is Dad wrong for refusing to accept that his mission from God is over and murdering to protect himself? Does Dad become a demon by disobeying God's command?

In the way the movie presents it. The dad and his sons are on a mission from God. As long as they do what they are supposed to do God will protect them. When Adam told the sheriff, dad had to kill him to continue their mission and was protected. God did protect dad by protecting from being punished for the murder. "Dad's mission was over?" Where did you see that? Dad didn't become a demon. Dad was punished later in the movie because Adam was on his list and he refused to kill him.

The ending is particularly creepy, as the small town sherrif is shown to have a devoted follower in his wife, and however many children they may have.

How is it creepy? He and his wife are religious. You see the video tape that proves Fenton was being protected. Now before someone says, and I've seen this quite a few times "It was coincidence", it wasn't. As the agents mentioned, the blur followed Fenton's face on all of the tapes.

A movie similar to this one is "Red State" (2011). Both movies shake my faith in our judicial system as well as religious faith.

I don't think Red State is at all like this. 100% different movie and Kevin Smith based that movie on the Phelps going off the deep end. Nothing at all like this movie.

[–] Redux006 10 years ago

It's a horror movie. The fact you are this upset by the ending shows they did a good job.

[–] ToHelenBackAgain 10 years ago

I re-watched this last night, not having seen it for some years, and I agree with the ending being a problem even more than I did previously. I always wished the ending had been left open, instead; in my opinion, this is a perfect subject for an open ending. But no, they just had to spoon-feed an answer to us, and the way they chose to go with that answer really doesn't add up with the preceding narrative.

It also bothered me that the people being killed weren't actually shown as demons, at least not in my view. They did not seem to be in any way supernatural beings, just people who had done bad things. Which also applies to Adam and his father. So it doesn't make sense that these two really very bad men would be the chosen Hands of God, either... they'd be demons, by the standards set forth.

How many times do they have to tell us before we believe them?

[–] jimmysmitsimdb 10 years ago

But no, they just had to spoon-feed an answer to us, and the way they chose to go with that answer really doesn't add up with the preceding narrative.

I don't think it was spoon fed. I think it was done well. Up until the tape footage was shown, no one knew if the dad was insane or not.

It also bothered me that the people being killed weren't actually shown as demons, at least not in my view. They did not seem to be in any way supernatural beings, just people who had done bad things.

They were demons who had possessed those people.

Which also applies to Adam and his father. So it doesn't make sense that these two really very bad men would be the chosen Hands of God, either... they'd be demons, by the standards set forth.

Exactly how so? If you are simply comparing murder to murder then you are using moral relativism. Killing a proven murderer is the same as killing any other person. I suppose you can have that opinion, but the vast majority of people don't.

Bus you are also ignoring the obvious distinction that they are actually on a mission from God.

[–] lathe-of-heaven 10 years ago

Nope...

Although I THINK that I understand your impressions. Your's is the CLASSIC 'Realist' audience member who really doesn't like and / or believe in any kind of supernatural explanations. They either just aren't believable to you, or they ruin (or diminish) the film.

Understandable... IF that is the kind of person you are.

However, whether you are that kind of 'Realist' person who prefers that kind of tone / explanation, or whether like me, you can totally buy into supernatural explanations (that are of course, well done) still, to me personally, the real POINT of the film was indeed to come across VERY ambiguously from the beginning, so that we don' KNOW and likely will assume that this is all in his (disturbed) mind. I'm quite sure that that was totally intentional. So, then at the end, when it is revealed actually to be quite true, thus the impact of the 'Twist'

But, again, ONLY, and ONLY, if you are the kind of person who enjoys and / or can buy into such things...

There have been some VERY heated debates on this subject regarding Horror films. I've left some comments of my personal feelings and preferences on many threads concerning this very topic. It' just a matter of taste, really. Some people ONLY like thier Horror / Suspense / Whatever firmly based upon 'Reality' or want it to be 'Believable' in order to enjoy or get into a film. Again, fully understandable. BUT... And, it is a Big But like Mariah Carey's, there are many of us, myself included, who perhaps prefer a more imaginative / metaphysical slant to our Horror films, etc.

But, for people who just don't care for that kind of thing in their movies, any introduction of that kind of element would understandably fall pretty flat and NOT be very effective as it would with ones like me...

That is my take on it anyway...

I have over 5000 films, many of them very rare and OOP. I LOVE to trade. PLEASE ASK!

[–] Nl50148 10 years ago

I had no problem with the ending. In fact I'm tired of God being made out to be something only crazies believe in. There are thousands of satanic/demonic/exorcist movies out there and rarely do viewers complain that they are unrealistic. We simple accept it as a supernatural story especially if we are non-believers. What's the big deal about doing the same here? Why does a story that says God is real have to be founded in fact or cater to the masses? I liked the movie. It was a refreshing change.

[–] peaspot 10 years ago

*Spoilers*
So I found the message of this movie quite disturbing for beliebers, about the description of God and Demon.

1. the movie depicted God as a vengeful and evil thing, more evil than the demon. He judged and killed his people, justifed and supported his men (Fenton/Adam) to fullfil his will by helping them (he gave him vision, protect them from the police and made them won in the end of the day)

2. it depicted demon just as people, ordinary people, human! In my opinion, those are not demons, they're just sinners. Everybody is a sinner. Fenton/Adam and Dad can make a list of infinite Demons out there if based on their theory that Demons are people that "had done a mistake" and they had to "judge" them by killing them as "God's Hands".

In conclusion, the final twist ending in the movie wanted to tell that God is "the real villain". I can see why people don't like this because this gave a different perfective of God they believe.

But I think the movie gave a further message than just a random theory of God and Demon (if you have a positive thinking about it). It simply just tell people that they just can't "play God" no matter how accurete they think of the "God's Message" they have.

Anyway,it's just a fiction movie