Imagine waking up to find your father ranting about being an agent of God and that he has been charged with murdering sinners. This is the basic premise behind Bill Paxton’s 2001 horror Frailty.

The movie opens up with Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) wanting to speak to FBI Agent Doyle (Powers Boothe). Meiks believes that his brother Adam (Levi Kreis) is the notorious “God’s Hand” serial killer. He continues to explain that he needs to tell the story of his father and brother now that his brother has committed suicide because he was unable to stop all the “demons”. He explains how he took his brother’s body and buried it in a rose garden as he had promised to do when they were children. The boy’s father explained to them that he was given the power by and angel to know when someone is truly evil. If he touches them he will know and has to act. The angel gave him three objects to help with his quest. He was given gloves to wear so that he can interact with people without always seeing, a lead pipe to knock them unconscious, and an axe to kill them with. The two brothers reacted to this news in completely opposite ways. Adam accepted what his father has to say and wanted to follow in his footsteps. Fenton refused to believe in his father.

The story of the brothers and father is told in flashbacks during the conversation between the older Fenton and Agent Doyle. Both Fenton and Adam are pushed by their father to first witness the killings of these evil beings. Their father tells them that what he is doing is not murder because they are not truly human. By the time the boys have witnessed and participated in a few of the killings Fenton has had enough and he calls the Sheriff in to stop his family. His father kills the Sheriff and blames Fenton and says that it is actual murder because the Sheriff was a good man and that Fenton himself is actually a devil. His Father then tells Fenton that he was told by the angel to destroy Fenton but after Fenton begs for mercy he is locked into the cellar by his father to starve.

A fair amount more happens as the brother’s grow up and Frailty has a fair amount more to say than one would initially believe. It touches on the themes of good versus evil, father and sons and the relationship between brothers. It is a smart classy horror movie that did fairly well in the box office and ended up with pretty positive reviews but for some reason it just fell off the radar once it ended up on DVD. For me it is one of those great WalMart bargain bin finds. It has a strong compelling story with enough scare factor to be a really good horror movie. Plus it does not hurt to have Bill Paxton as a lunatic father waking his kids up in the middle of the night in order to tell them about murdering evil people. I can just imagine my son screaming and running under the bed if I ever woke him up in the middle of the night like that. He would never sleep again.