I  have been debating whether or not I should watch Mercy for a couple of weeks now. I couldn’t get a good grip on what it was trying to be from the synopsis or trailer… Something about possession I assumed. After all, that seems to be the 2014 craze. Heads up, some spoilers lie ahead.

We get a nostalgic sort of narration from our lead character. A young boy whos grandmother is his best friend. Being born and raised in the south, I can relate. We take our grandmas pretty seriously around here. However, it becomes pretty clear that something isn’t quite right with the boys elderly BFF. We fast forward a year and grandma is getting thrown out of her nursing home for being all weird and shit.

Family brings grandma home – one thing leads to another and there are pageless books being filled by tears (or blood), a horrible CG demon wolf wondering around the forest, escaped mental institution attendee Aunt Janet springing from the joint to show up dead, a man slapping himself in the face with an axe, a little ghost girl talking to our main character, and we find out grandma was possessed by a demon all along. As for the little ghost girl? Oh, that was grandma too.

Make much sense? No, it fucking doesn’t.

Mercy’s presentation is somewhere between a lifetime film, a Tim Burton film, and every cruddy mid 2000s straight to DVD release you’ve ever seen. The acting is passable. McDermott turns in good work as usual. I suppose I’m frustrated because there was a good movie crawling around somewhere in here. I tried to find it… It simply alluded me.