Bill Paxton plays a small-town religious fanatic in “Frailty,” which he also directed.

THE year’s scariest movie is already available on video.You likely haven’t heard of “Frailty,” which didn’t get much of an advertising push when it was released to theaters in April. But there are shocks aplenty in this low-budget gothic horror tale, the directing debut of actor Bill Paxton.

Paxton chillingly plays a small-town religious fanatic who enlists his two young sons to kidnap and kill people who have been identified as “demons” in his visions.

Also available on video is David Fincher’s slightly less scary “The Panic Room,” starring Jodie Foster as a woman trapped with her daughter in a Central Park West townhouse by a trio of murderous robbers.