Mercy

The acting from this is decent. The kid from The Walking Dead fares pretty well, definitely better than in The Walking Dead (although how much I hate him there is really only because of his horrible character and less because of his acting). I just think the film is really, really unoriginal. Well I guess making it a grandma gives it some originality points, but hey. The score is way too loud at times, and the climax sort of weak. Still, it's never boring (although at no point does it ever really achieve entertainment to a very high level). This is maybe recommended to some, maybe not to others. Overall, nothing too memorable.

An elderly woman named Mercy (Shirley Knight) is slipping away at her advanced age. She was a single mother of three as her husband killed himself while her children were young. Now, in her old age, she's become more violent and like a person in need of an exorcism. While everyone wants to get clear away from her, George (Chandler Riggs), her favorite grandchild, wants to help her.

This movie was O.K. They didn't do anything real inventive or creative. It seemed low budget from the special effects which doesn't necessarily kill a movie but it can hinder it severely if not done correctly. The movie hinged upon Chandler Riggs as he was the main protagonist but I don't think he delivered that well. He wasn't awful, he just wasn't good. I think he's better suited for helping his father kill zombies (for you Walking Dead fans out there). In the end the movie was just an average or even slightly below average horror film.

Mercy is a horror story that plays on typical human fears with a twist, In quintessential Stephen King fashion.

Matt Greenberg adapts King's short story Gramma into the screenplay for the horror film Mercy.

George is the undeniable favorite grandson to his grandmother Mercy. His mother along with his brother must act as caretaker when Mercy unexpectedly is stricken ill and requires constant care. Inexplicably odd and mysterious occurrences seem to revolve around his grandmother and George rushes to save her.

As a horror fanatic, Stephen King represents the worst aspect of horror. I find his writings and stories to be horridly cliché exasperated by the fact that King so desperately tries to twist and surprise his readers when the ending can be seen a mile away.

Interestingly, Mercy is a well paced suspenseful horror in which few stereotypical scares are used until the final reveal. The horror lies in the unveiling of truth through ominous and foreboding layers and well utilized complementary music. Shirley Knight is incredibly creepy as Mercy, the potentially possessed grandmother. The children and characters themselves are smarter than most adults in horror movies.

Chandler Riggs is the main character George, and significantly younger in this film than he is on the Walking Dead. This leads me to assume that the film sat shelves for some time before being made available. Mercy doesn't really add anything new to the genre which is probably the explanation but all in all, it is not a terrible horror movie.

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Despite its slow pace there is a solid film here with some decent performances. There are some confused plot points and it feels at time like a very complex and rich script is trying to force its way through a simplified movie, but it is certainly not without its charm.

The film reads like a classic ghost story that was shackled by attempts to make it a contemporary horror film that doesn't know who its audience actually is. There are elements of comedy mixed in which don't gel well with the general tone and jump scares that don't really fit either.

Overall it is worth watching due to its potential, but don't expect to be overwhelmed as somewhere along the lines most of this was squandered by the film overall throwing things against a wall and seeing what sticks.

The film was way under lit, I presume so they could cover for lack of good screenplay. Not good.