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Bill Paxton has directed a well-made but repulsive little horror film set in Texas with one redeeming feature. It shows how menacing a religious zealot can be. Paxton also stars as a widower who claims to have been visited by an angel who informs him that God has singled him and his two sons out to destroy demons. And where will they find such demons? They'll be posing as ordinary folk and they must be killed.
The story actually begins with a man (Matthew McConaughey) who says he is one of the sons, now grown, meeting with an FBI agent (Powers Boothe) to reveal that he knows who a mysterious serial killer is. The film uses flashbacks to illustrate the visitor's story, including how the father enlists the aid of one believing son and terrorizes the skeptical other boy. These scenes and the murder scenes are wickedly scary.
A horror flick addict may be amply satisfied with the demented action, but otherwise the circumstances of the killings are off-putting, and credibility is also strained at more than one point. Screenwriter Brent Hanley has worked out the details with the right nods to creating a terror-filled atmosphere. But if you don't thrive on horror, you may not want to indulge. A Lions Gate Films release.
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