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.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
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.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
May leave you more cold and stunned than enlightened.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth 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.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Against all odds in heaven and hell, it creeped me out just fine.
Genuinely creepy Southern Gothic thriller that once again proves that in horror movies, sometimes less is actually more.
Baltimore Sun by Michael Sragow
Gory but lifeless.
Chicago Tribune by Michael 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.
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
It's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner, and even if it's nonsense, its claws dig surprisingly deep.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
Blood-curdling stuff.