Frailty
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: April 12, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
10
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Andrea Yates believed she was possessed by Satan and could save her children by drowning them. Frailty is as chilling. Read full review
90
VarietyRobert Koehler
A resoundingly old-fashioned and well crafted study of evil infecting an American family, Frailty moves from strength to strength on its deceptive narrative course. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Paxton's Dad may be the most terrifying father to appear in a horror film since Jack Nicholson went crazily homicidal in "The Shining." Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
Genuinely creepy Southern Gothic thriller that once again proves that in horror movies, sometimes less is actually more. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderHank Sartin
It's good old-fashioned rural gothic that would make Flannery O'Connor proud, with tricky switcheroos that keep shaking up our assumptions about what's going on. Read full review
80
Film ThreatClint Morris
So immodestly unripe; yet so horrendously tempting you’ll find it hard to resist. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Well-crafted, disturbing Texas gothic thriller, a completely spooky piece of business that gets under your skin and, some plot blips aside, stays there for the duration. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
It's a small, unassuming movie grasping at whole-hog homo psychopathicus, with its feet planted squarely in Texan grave dirt and its head lost in the ether of Christian derangement. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The film becomes cumulatively stranger as it goes along, and it has a lulu of a kicker. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Against all odds in heaven and hell, it creeped me out just fine. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
It's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner, and even if it's nonsense, its claws dig surprisingly deep. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Blood-curdling stuff. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
You'll depart with memories of a well-crafted study in quiet horror, and with ideas whirling in your head about the nature of evil and what happens to children caught in its grip. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Somber and violent but undeniably stylish and unsettling thriller. Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
May leave you more cold and stunned than enlightened. Read full review
70
SlateDavid Edelstein
You have to give credit to Frailty for jiggering up the formula a bit, so that what starts as an ominously low-key study of a boy coming of age with a mad father escalates into a combination of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Breaking the Waves" -- Grand Guignol religiosity. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Chills to the bone -- and beyond, but for pure excitement it's best not to look far beneath the surface. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Most of Frailty is so good -- done in a low-key, realistic mood of genuine creepiness and dread -- that it doesn't need formula shocks. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
As disappointing as the wrap-up is, it can't erase the chilling psychological warfare that represents the majority of what precedes it. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
The payoff isn't worth the time invested, but at least the actor-turned-filmmaker underplays an inherently queasy project that could have been over the top. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyChuck Wilson
Audiences are destined to debate the film's final scenes, where Hanley piles on plot twists, leading to a coda that turns a creepily ambiguous story about God and the terrifying power of paternal love into something closer to an X-File. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Paxton is impressively subtle and elicits remarkable performances from O'Leary and Sumpter. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Starts out, and ends up, as a thriller trying valiantly to show us layers of moral depth. But in between that beginning and ending, Paxton's vision (as well as that of Brent Hanley, who wrote the script) becomes wavy and indistinct, a blurry muddle of sensationalistic, prurient grisliness masquerading as a meditation on the nature of evil. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
There's a good little psychological thriller buried underneath all the manufactured shocks, in the story of a powerless child standing alone against a parent's mental illness.
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Gory but lifeless. Read full review
50
New Times (L.A.)Robert Wilonsky
Like so many other allegedly scary movies, it gets so tangled up in The Twist that it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeSam Allis
Murder should either be unsparingly real or kitschy like the ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'' This is neither. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
The story sounds horrifying, but the film takes some unfortunate twists and never presents us with a multifaceted character in Paxton. Paxton just doesn't play the nice-but-nuts role with a modicum of terror. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
This is a guy movie, a gothic creepshow. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
When the twists arrive, they feel like much of the film: creepy and cliché-free, but still terribly wrong. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The movie is so disturbing that it seems nearly blasphemous. I wouldn't wish it on an anthrax spore. After all, anthrax has feelings, too. Read full review
0
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
Dumb but also unrelentingly dark and ugly, thereby depriving the viewer of any camp value. Read full review
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