"Seriously, that's the ending?" and other reactions

A while ago I watched Bill Paxton's 2001 film, Frailty, a story of religious fanaticism, a highly dysfunctional family and an unreliable narrator. It's twisty-turny kind of a plot but its the ending I really want to talk about, it reminded me of another film. This one, released in 1998, is Fallen, a supernatural thriller and like Frailty it leaves the viewer somewhat...deflated. Needless to say there are spoilers ahead.

Poster from IMDB

The story start like this: Matthew McConaughey's Fenton walks into a southern FBI office claiming his brother is the serial killer they're looking for is his younger brother Adam. The reason Adam likes murdering people in the name of God is because when they were younger their father (played by director Bill Paxton) believed he got messages from God that told him to destroy demons and he roped the boys into helping him murder innocent people. Fenton refuses to believe it so his father, having been told by an angel Fenton is a demon, locks him in their purpose built killing shelter until he sees the truth.

Now, form the outset it is painfully obvious for even the most disinterested viewer that Fenton is shifty and everything coming out of his mouth is a pack of lies.

Photo from here

...Which it is. But not in the way you think. Fenton is really Adam, the younger brother who went along with the crazy Dad...who wasn't crazy. All the stuff about demons is real and they really did have superpowers and all the innocent people they killed were demons. The real Fenton was a demon and he is the serial killer the FBI are looking for. The friendly FBI agent we believed to be the hero of the film? Killed his mother for no apparent reason. Add to that the fact the Adam is a the local sheriff and can cover up all his crimes, which aren't really crimes if he was destroying demons right? It's an odd ending because although everything is resolved there isn't really a resolution. By the end there is no hero to root for and celebrate with. Adam, even if he is doing the work of God and wiping evil from the earth, just come across as a sinister psychopath and the one person proclaimed to be "a good man" has only been on screen for a grand total of two minutes if that.

In Fallen (1998, Gregory Hoblit), John Hobbes (Denzel Washington) engages in a battle of wits with the demon Azazel (lets take a moment to step back and compare shall we) who hops from body to body and likes to kill people for fun. The movie starts with a voice over from Hobbes:

Let me tell you about the time I almost died...

The stakes have been set. Our hero is going to be pushed to the edge but he will survive because otherwise he wouldn't be doing the voice over. You get three guesses as to the twist at the end of this film and the first two don't count. The overriding message of the movie is that evil is infectious. One act towards another person passes the evil on and so on and so forth. Azazel personifies this. An obvious counterpoint would be that good can be passed on in the same way right? We spend the whole film not knowing who to trust but because Hobbes is good and is striving to protect those he loves, Azael can't win right? Right?! 

[last lines] Azazel: Oh! You forgot something, didn't you? Back at the start, I said I was going to tell you about the time I *almost* died. [chuckles] Azazel: Be seeing you. 

Shit.

So that voice over the whole way through wasn't Hobbes it was the demon. Hobbes is dead. Not almost dead. Dead, dead. My Dad says, frequently, how much he dislikes this film because it doesn't leave you with any hope. Evil wins. The Lights go up. Case closed. The only thing that is better that Frailty is that the hero and villain were clear cut from the beginning.

What's notable is that both these films are just pre-9/11 and films that came after were more noticeably clear cut in heroes and villains and the ambiguity of endings is only recently coming back. However, regardless of cultural context, I am firmly in favour of happy endings but when that's a cop out I will settle for at least a strong resolution with a small ray of hope.