MERCY (2014)

Studio:       Universal Pictures
Director:    Peter Cornwell
Writer:       Matt Greenberg, Stephen King
Producer:  Jason Blum, McG, Mary Viola
Stars:     Frances O’Connor, Shirley Knight, Mark Duplass, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney, Dylan McDermott, Chris Browning, Amanda Walsh, Eddie Jones, Hana Hayes

Review Score:

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Summary:

When his family is forced to care for her following a stroke, a young boy learns that his beloved grandmother may be a witch.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

West Virginia, 1967 – After she gives birth to triplets, Mercy’s husband Frank kills himself by taking an ax to his own head.

Present Day – George enjoys a close relationship with his grandmother Mercy, whom he considers his best friend. After collapsing at a holiday dinner, Mercy is placed in the R.L. Flag Home for the Aged.

One Year Later – Having suffered a stroke and with little money left to pay for her care, Mercy returns in a state of dementia to her home where George and his brother Buddy help care for her alongside their mother Rebecca. George regularly communicates with an imaginary friend he refers to as the Girl Next Door.

George finds a message in Mercy’s mailbox that reads, “Hastur’s got her George! Get away! Run run run!” Rebecca recognizes the handwriting as belonging to her sister Jinny, but cannot determine how she sent it since Jinny is committed to an asylum.

Rebecca’s other sibling, George’s alcoholic uncle Lanning, intimates to George that Mercy has evil powers. Lanning tells George how Mercy felt abandoned after Rebecca joined the military. When Jinny married her boyfriend Terry Clay, Mercy became upset over losing another daughter. On their honeymoon, Terry ended up mysteriously mauled while Jinny lost her mind as a result of witnessing the event.

George hears his grandmother speaking in another language. Mercy convinces him to secretly exchange her medication with saline so that she can begin regaining her strength.

George asks the local priest about his grandmother. Pastor Gregory Luke tells him that frustrated over her barren womb, Mercy turned to the occult in order to bear children.

Rebecca, Buddy, and George return after a day in town to discover that Mercy killed Lanning while they were away, but the death is ruled to be the result of Lanning’s drinking. While cleaning up after, the brothers find a hidden panel in the floor. Inside, they discover a grimoire with three teardrops etched into its cover. However, all of the pages are blank.

George decides to consult family friend Jim Swann about the mysterious tome. Although married to artist Charlotte, Jim has a romantic interest in Rebecca. Jim and Charlotte are not home, but Buddy finds a book on witchcraft lore explaining that Mercy’s grimoire is a “weeping book,” whose pages only reveal their contents when someone cries tears onto them while praying to receive something deeply desired.

The boys use the book. When it reveals an image of George’s screaming face, Buddy puts the book in a wood chipper. Debris from the chipper impales Buddy, forcing Rebecca to take him to the hospital while George is left alone with Mercy.

A verbena plant is sent anonymously to the house. George researches the flower online and learns that it is considered a holy plant. George also looks up the name Hastur and discovers that he is a demon. Mercy tells George that the “Death Wolf,” a mythical creature that Charlotte painted an image of, is coming.

Aunt Jinny calls George and tells him that Mercy’s spirit told her it wants George. Jinny tells George that she escaped the mental hospital and is on her way to meet him as soon as he escapes Mercy’s house.

Mercy drops dead, but her body goes missing while George is out of the room. George discovers that all of the doors are locked and he cannot leave. The Girl Next Door appears to George and tells him to retrieve the ax in the cellar to break down the doors. George accidentally stumbles into a ceremonial circle and sees new pages depicting his torment in the weeping book, which has magically reappeared.

George attempts to flee the house again, but Mercy, now possessed by Hastur, captures him. George uses the verbena plant to burn his grandmother’s face and escape. Mercy briefly gives chase, but the sight of the Death Wolf outside frightens her back into the house.

George tells Jim and Charlotte everything that happened. Charlotte explains that the Death Wolf is not a demon. Rather, it goes after those who are wicked.

Jim takes George to find his mother. However, Jim pulls a gun and confesses that Mercy/Hastur was helping him use the weeping book to have a life with Rebecca. George causes Jim’s vehicle to spin out. George escapes when Jim is run over by an oncoming car.

George finds Aunt Jinny dead in her car nearby. George returns to Mercy’s house to rescue his mother. George ends up in a confrontation with Mercy/Hastur that culminates in George seemingly destroying Mercy with Frank’s ax.

Hastur appears and begins controlling Mercy’s body like a puppet. A weeping book page reveals that Hastur intends to possess George. Hastur splits open Mercy’s head and bleeds her all over the book’s pages. Her dark essence then shrouds George. George recalls a memory of his grandmother advising him to be brave as he sheds a tear onto the book, dissipating the darkness and returning the pages to their blank state. The Girl Next Door appears and reveals that she was an incarnation of Mercy’s younger self helping to guide George. Rebecca, George, and Buddy later bury the weeping book in the ground.

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Click here for Culture Crypt's review of the 2016 Netflix home invasion thriller "Mercy."

Review:

Left alone with his ailing grandmother when Mom takes brother Buddy to the hospital, George discovers that granny made a deal with a demon, and his soul is part of her bargain.  That’s not a summary for “Mercy.”  That’s a summary for the Stephen King short story “Gramma,” upon which “Mercy” is based.  It’s only one sentence because the tale is so straightforward that Harlan Ellison adapted it into a quick 21-minute episode of “The Twilight Zone” in 1986 starring just two visible actors.

In expanding the work into a feature length film, “Mercy” understandably needed to embellish the details beyond merely one boy and his grandmother.  So “Mercy” added a grandfather who dies of a self-inflicted ax wound, a triplet birth for grandma, an expanded role for brother Buddy, an aunt in the loony bin, an uncle in the bottle, an imaginary friend for George, a love interest for mom, a “devil worshipping” artist wife for the love interest, a concerned local reverend, and some occult mythology about death wolves and weeping books.

By the time “Mercy” went before the cameras, that tale “The Twilight Zone” told with two people had bloomed to a cast of 21 and a screenplay stuffed with subplots.  This isn’t one of those fanboy or film scholar whines about an adaptation taking liberties with its source material, however.  Rather, documenting these differences gets to the bottom of how “Mercy” ends up in a mire of more ideas than it knows what to do with.

Having made casting announcements in 2012, and presumably entering production around the same time, “Mercy” became part of that “whatever happened to…?” subsection of Blumhouse productions unceremoniously slipped into VOD channels in October 2014.  The two years in between were not spent patiently acquiring cobwebs on a shelf, though.  From the truncated runtime to the non-sequitur storytelling, “Mercy” evidently went under the editor’s knife for a hefty amount of tinkering, likely more than once.

Blink and you’ll miss Dylan McDermott’s early appearance seated at a family gathering while grandma trots out a pot roast.  What’s he doing in the movie?  I’m not sure.  Neither is “Mercy.”  His character doesn’t receive a formal introduction until a few scenes later, after a “one year later” interlude clutters up his relation to the core family even further.

Part of his association is to serve as a love interest for George’s mother Rebecca, a purpose unfulfilled since the two of them have but two brief moments together, one of which is inaudible.  McDermott’s role is one of several whose inclusion is so curious and random, you can tell you are looking at a puzzle put together without all of the right pieces in place.

In the original King short, and in “Mercy” too, George’s brother Buddy exists mainly to get Mom out of the house so George can be alone with grandma.  “Mercy” gives Buddy more to do anyway with his characterization as a budding young chef that would be completely pointless if it wasn’t genuinely amusing.

When the brothers find a black magic grimoire requiring tears to reveal its text, Buddy thinks to make himself cry by reminiscing about Julia Child, who “died too young.”  Joel Courtney delivers the absurd line with such sincerity that the laugh is virtually guaranteed.  Mark Duplass offers similar entertainment value with his drunk uncle role tiptoeing between disheveled creep and endearing alcoholic in a way that puts all eyes on him whenever he is onscreen.  “Mercy” is guilty of juggling more personalities than make sense for its story, but at least these two crack smiles through the incoherence.

SPOILERS

Consider how act three kicks off its climax: All of the doors in Mercy’s house are supernaturally locked and George is unable to escape.  For only the third time in the film, George’s “Girl Next Door” imaginary friend serendipitously appears and tells the boy that he must retrieve the ax in the cellar to chop down the doors.  Shortly thereafter, George stumbles into a ceremonial circle where he spots the weeping book, which has magically reappeared despite Buddy shredding it in a wood chipper.  (It’s also depicting new pages despite no one crying on it.)  George flees in fright straight out the front door, apparently no longer locked, rendering that “ax in the cellar” requirement moot.  Mercy captures George, but the boy fends off her attack with a verbena flower, a plant that arrived on the doorstep moments before thanks to an anonymous angel.

In just under a three-minute span, “Mercy” employs two deus ex machinas (The Girl Next Door and the verbena plant), and has two continuity lapses (the reappearing tome and an unlocked front door).  This is to say nothing of the solitary car on a deserted country road suddenly striking Jim, why George’s mother would call a cell phone somehow in the possession of her escaped mental patient sister, or the “death wolf” who does nothing but glow his yellow eyes to frighten people into Mercy’s house.

END SPOILERS

Intriguing fiction is afoot in “Mercy,” but a non-committal attitude leaves it listing in an uncertain direction.  Look no further for evidence than the seesawing conclusion not quite sure if it wants to stick to King’s grim outcome or opt for something more cheerful.  “Mercy” does both simultaneously, ensuring that the audience leaves with one more unscratched itch on their scalps.

I assume a 120-minute cut of “Mercy” exists with all of its scenes intact and arranged in an order where what the creators intended fully translates onto the screen.  I also assume that version must have been a complete snoozer to warrant trading continuity for a quicker paced 75-minutes that is mildly entertaining, albeit narratively unsatisfying.

A darkly compelling story exists somewhere in the thick of “Mercy.”  There may even be a thoroughly entertaining horror film hidden within the footage that was shot.  But the misshapen monster ultimately cut together is a patchwork assembly that would confound even Dr. Frankenstein.

Review Score:  55

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