My friend Jared lent this film to me and told me I should see it, and I must say he was right. This is a really well done film, as well as being dark and disturbing. Not only that, but you are expecting a twist, and the twist was not the one I was expecting. Well worth seeing, and not just for horror fans, this film should have a much wider audience, and I highly recommend this film. I hope Paxton does some more directing in the future.

This is the story of Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) who goes in to FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) to tell him that the serial killer he is chasing is in fact his younger brother Adam, and to tell his him the story of his father and tell him why. We then flash back to the story of Fenton’s family, he is a young boy (Matt O’Leary) living with his little brother Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) and their father (Bill Paxton). One night young Fenton’s life is torn asunder when his father wakes him and his brother to tell him of a vision he had. His father tells him that an angel came to him and told him that the Earth was ending, and they had been chosen to help god save people by fighting demons. They would be given 3 weapons, and then told a list of people that were demons and they would have to destroy them. Fenton realizes his father has gone mad, and just hopes it is all a dream, but it is not.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Over the course of a week their father brings home what he calls 3 sacred weapons, an axe, a piece of pipe and some work gloves. and even worse one night Fenton sees his father return late with what looks like a body. Fenton goes to go see what his father is doing, and is followed by Adam, and they find their father in the shed, with a tied up nurse who only wants to escape. Fenton’s father takes off the gloves and touches the norse and twitches and he screams, and he says he sees she is a demon, but Fenton can’t believe it, yet Adam seems to listen to anything his father says. THe father then kills the nurse, and they help him bury the body in the nearby rose garden, and Fenton starts to plan to escape, but Adam doesn’t seem to want to leave with him, so Fenton hopes it is over, but of course it isn’t.

His father keeps bringing back people to kill and killing them, and wanting Fenton to do it. First he punishes him and has him dig a huge pit in the back yard, and Fenton does it without gloves, and his hands bleeding and it takes days, and they make it a basement for the shed, but Fenton knows it is a dungeon.

Fenton’s father brings back another person and wants Fenton to kill him, but he won’t, so he runs and gets Sheriff Smalls (Luke Askew) and brings him back and tells him the truth, but isn’t believed. And because of this his father kills the sheriff, in his mind finally making him a murderer, though Fenton has known he was all along, and his father tells him the Angel told him that Fenton was a demon and he had to kill him and if he didn’t someone would die, and they did, but still the father won’t kill his son. Instead the father locks the son in the basement until he understands god, and he keeps him there for days or even weeks, only letting Adam feed him water, until finally Fenton does see God, and passes out, and they let him out. Fenton recovers, and his father takes him to take a demon back, and takes the axe, but instead of killing the “Demon” he puts the axe in his father and drops him. Adam runs to him, and his father tells him something, and then Adam comes and kills the the “Demon.” Fenton and Adam burry the body, and Fenton gets Adam to swear if he ever “destroys” him to bury him in the garden along with their father.

Meanwhile the older Fenton and Doyle have reached the Garden and are walking to see the bodies, when Fenton explains that in fact he is not Fenton, as Fenton is the missing serial killer, but he is instead Adam, and he killed Fenton. Fenton had become the killer to get Adam to hunt him, but he couldn’t do it until God told him to, and he did. And the reason he came to Doyle was that he is on his list for killing his mother. Doyle says the FBI will find him on the video tapes at the station, but Adam tells him that God will protect him, and he “destroys” Doyle.

And back at the FBI office, they look at the tapes, and they can never see Adam’s face, and the other officer who saw him is sent to the small town to see Adam and tell him that his brother Fenton was the serial killer, and they want to inform Sheriff Adam Meiks before he hears from someplace else, and that Fenton also killed Doyle. And the man doesn’t remember Adam and Adam shakes his hand and calls him a good man. And Adam’s wife comes out and kisses him, an he tells her they are fine and it is all God’s will. It seems the father was right all along!

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Wow, a great film and I didn’t see that ending coming at all. Very well done, and incredibly well acted and directed. A must see really!