Wow. Bad acting and directing but great fricking story. Definately recommend it. My only question to those who’ve seen it is what the hell was the “Otis” written on the axe supposed to mean? Camera focused on it way too much for it not to mean something.
I saw this movie when it was first released, and I totally forgot that the axe had a name.
I spent some time googling to find the answer, and the closest I could come was this exchange in an interview Bill Paxton gave about the movie. Since the quoted portion of the interview contains spoiler material, I’ve cloaked it in the spoiler box below:
So, in other words, the axe has a name in order to make it distinctive, and immediately recognizable when it appears in the climactic scene in the rose garden.
If anyone can find a more definitive answer, be my guest.
Atreyu Nice find! Thanks. Now - in the end one of the FBI agents says that “Fenton Meeks” must be a fake name and must stand for something. Was there something to this?
That’s funny. I felt the movie had good acting and directing, with a terrible fricking story. Well, lemme explain. (No wait, there’s too much. Lemme sum up.) The first 70 minutes were outstanding, far and away the darkest, most intense movie I’ve ever seen. Then they added twist after twist after twist after twist until suddenly I didn’t care anymore. Utterly destroyed the movie.
I especially liked how Bill Paxton played his character, how you never really lose sympathy for him. Despite being a serial killer, he seems truly driven by outside forces, and even hates what he’s doing. Also it makes sense that the younger kid would blindly follow along, while the older kid would be horribly conflicted.
KGS I don’t mean to be condescending but did you end up following all the twists and turns to figure out what was really going on the whole time in the end? Because I found it to be much more interesting than even the Sixth Sense ending. And I too really liked the ambiguity of having Bill Paxton’s character likeable.
I liked it.
(Shortest, blandest opinion I think I’ve ever given)
KC, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the movie, but here’s what I remember (ooh ooh I get to do spoiler tags for the first time…)
Twist #1:Fenton Meeks is really Anton. (obvious)
Twist #2:The FBI guy killed his mother. (huh??)
Twist #3:Anton is the sheriff. (This one was most ridiculous and unnecessary. I got the feeling they were going for a Usual Suspects vibe here.)
Twist #4:The murders really were controlled by God after all, as evidenced by the defective FBI tape and the fact that nobody could remember what Anton Meeks looked like. It would have been better if they left it as vague as possible.
My objection is that the twists were too many and pointless. Classic twist-ending movies like The Sixth Sense only change one very small, yet ultimately critical, detail. Frailty felt like it was having twists merely for the sake of having twists.
I liked most of it and found it deeply disturbing and intense. I had no problem with the acting or directing, just with the story as it became more and more confusing.
Yes. Fenton Meeks backwards reads “Skeem Notnef” which is german for “Axe Killer”
I have a question.
At the beginning of the movie, the FBI guy calls the sheriff in Fenton’s hometown to see if Fenton is legit. If Fenton WAS the sheriff, then who was powers Booth talking to?
Wild Bill rocks.
Anton’s secretary/perhaps girlfriend/wife. She’s with him in the end saying “Praise God”.
watching the deleted scenes on DVD- esp where the older boy is reading the Bible looking for refutations of Dad’s crusade.
“we’re beyound religion, boys! We have a direct hotline to God Himself!”
Young Son- “Does that mean we don’t have to go to church anymore?”
Dad- “Guess so!”
Young Son- “Hot dog!”
huh, I could have sworn the guy’s name was Adam.
Stinkpalm Damn! At least put a tongue in cheek smiley. I didn’t think it looked like german but Im embarrassed to say I checked the german-online dictionary.
Spoilers:
I agree that Adam/Anton as sheriff was an unnecessary addition. Besides the doosey of the reveal that the Paxton’s/McConaughey’s characters WERE actually doing the work of God, I just found it amazing that except for misrepresenting himself as Fenton virtually everything else Adam/ Anton said was true. His brother was the God’s Hand killer. So while there is the twist that he is actually Adam, nothing else really changes.
I also thought it was cool how the video tape went blurry because the father had said something along the lines of “God will blind them etc”
But the most interesting question raised IMO is:
Was it Fenton’s bizarre childhood that made him become a serial killer in the first place? Did God create the Devil?
No. Fenton was a demon from the beginning. Remember when God told the dad, and the dad didn’t want to believe it. Fenton was a killer because he was evil. At least that’s what I got from it.
It was my impression that fenton went insane when he was imprisoned in the cellar. He said that he had a vision and saw God at that time. Then later, right before he killed his father, he said “I’m ready to fulfill my destiny.” I had assumed that this “destiny” wasrevealed to him during his vision.
With reference to Diogenes the Cynic’s last post, I thought that Fenton lied about having the vision in order to get out of the cellar.
I also thought his name was Adam, not Anton.
I also agreed with Alias that Fenton was born a demon.
One other thing. Paxton’s character said that God had given him three weapons with which to fight the demons. I only saw the Ax and the Pipe. What was the third?
I think it was supposed to be the gloves. I know that’s two items and they’re not really a weapon, but I don’t know what else the third weapon could have been.
Yeah, that was my understanding too. You guys are really lazy with the spoiler tags, heh. As if anyone can’t figure out from the thread title and the early posts that there are spoilers here.The pipe knocked 'em out, the axe (Otis) killed 'em, but the gloves were what protected Paxton’s character from seeing what the demons had done. When he took them off and touched a demon, he saw the visions. They were somewhat distracting, so he wouldn’t have wanted to experience them while trying to incapacitate a demon to take it back to the homestead.