MERCY BLACK (2019)

Studio:      Netflix/Blumhouse
Director:    Owen Egerton
Writer:      Owen Egerton
Producer:  Seth Caplan, Adam Hendricks, John Lang, Greg Gilreath
Stars:     Daniella Pineda, Austin Amelio, Elle LaMont, Lee Eddy, Miles Emmons, Janeane Garofalo

Review Score:

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Summary:

15 years after stabbing a friend to conjure a supernatural entity, a troubled young woman goes back to believing the urban legend might be real.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

As young girls, Rebecca Cline tells her friend Marina Hess about the legend of Mercy Black, a supernatural entity that seeks out sad children and takes away what hurts them in exchange for an offering that will make her flesh and blood. Believing she can summon Mercy to save her dying mother, Marina goes along with Rebecca’s plan to sacrifice their friend Lily. Lily survives the stabbing while Marina and Rebecca are committed to mental hospitals.

15 Years Later – Psychiatrist Dr. Etta Ward releases Marina from Schatten State Hospital into the custody of Marina’s sister Alice. Although she still struggles with nightmares, Marina begins living with Alice and Alice’s eight-year-old son Bryce.

Alice invites her boyfriend Will Nylund to the house for dinner. Claiming to be a true crime fan, Will presses Marina for details about the stabbing while explaining how the legend of Mercy Black went viral after the incident. Later that night, someone vandalizes the house with a Mercy Black effigy.

After his mother tells him not to say her name, Bryce asks librarian Mrs. Bellows about Mercy Black. Mrs. Bellows shows Bryce how to research stories about Mercy Black as well as his aunt Marina on the internet.

Will visits Marina at the house. Will mentions that Rebecca Cline was previously released from her mental hospital. Marina becomes uncomfortable when Will insists that Marina publicly tell her story for profit. Marina inadvertently cuts Will’s hand with a sander when he gets too close to her. Claiming Marina is crazy, Will storms away. Alice returns home during the altercation and shouts at Will to never return.

Alice finds the family dog dead in a trashcan. Believing Will to be responsible, Alice leaves to confront him.

Bryce asks Marina about Mercy Black. Marina tells her nephew that Rebecca made up the legend. Bryce shows Marina what he found online and tells her he is worried he will see Mercy.

Alice storms into Will’s house where she discovers a collection of clippings related to Marina and Mercy Black. Will confesses that he has been writing a book about Marina and Mercy. Alice leaves in anger. Later that night, someone dressed as Mercy Black murders Will in his home.

Bryce wakes up screaming when he sees Mercy Black watching him through a vent. Marina sees the word “promise” written on Bryce’s bedroom wall, which prompts her to remember Rebecca cutting off Lily’s finger as an offering to Mercy.

Alice becomes concerned when Marina tells her she thinks Mercy Black may be real after all. Alice calls Dr. Ward to tell her Marina is seeing and hearing things again.

Marina goes to see Rebecca at the trailer where she lives with her mother. Although Rebecca is catatonic, Marina finds a hand drawn map to Mercy Black’s hidden home in the woods. Rebecca suddenly attacks until Mrs. Cline pulls her off of Marina.

Mrs. Bellows drives Bryce home after finding him ripping up a book in a rage. Bryce sets up his friend Sam to be killed in a noose trap as an offering to Mercy Black. Alice rescues Sam. Bryce tells his mother that Mercy Black told him to do it.

Marina follows Rebecca’s map and her memory to a fallout shelter hidden in the woods. Inside, Marina remembers building an effigy of Mercy Black with Rebecca, who told her that the underground shelter was Mercy Black’s home.

Alice discovers disturbing pictures drawn by her son. Officer Hamilton calls Alice to the police station regarding Will’s death. Before she can leave, Alice finds Bryce standing entranced and whispering toward his bedroom vent. Alice becomes spooked by a shadowy figure and falls down the stairs.

Marina returns home as Alice is taken away in an ambulance. Alice tells Marina that she saw Mercy Black.

Marina shows Bryce the mask she made with Rebecca to prove Mercy Black isn’t real. Bryce begins reciting the Mercy Black rhyme. Someone knocks Marina unconscious.

Bryce runs outside where Mrs. Bellows is waiting. A finger missing from her hand reveals that Mrs. Bellows is actually Lily. Lily takes Bryce to the fallout shelter in the woods.

Responding to Alice’s earlier phone call, Dr. Ward arrives at the house and revives Marina. Dr. Ward mentions that Lily went off the grid in adulthood and could have been the person who attacked Marina. Marina takes Dr. Ward to the forest floor hatch leading to the fallout shelter. While Marina goes inside to look for Bryce, Lily slits Dr. Ward’s throat from behind.

Lily confronts Marina inside the shelter. Lily explains that she wanted Marina to believe again so that Marina could see Mercy Black. Lily claims that Marina’s mother died because Marina and Rebecca failed to complete their sacrifice.

Bryce runs away as the two women fight. Lily stabs Marina and leaves her to die. Before exiting, Lily tells Marina that she plans to sacrifice Bryce to bring Mercy Black to life.

The Mercy Black effigy seemingly comes to life and attacks Marina. Marina fights back and the effigy collapses.

Lily captures Bryce at the edge of the lake where Mercy Black can supposedly be summoned. Marina arrives and begins choking Lily. Marina stops when she realizes Lily wants to die to complete the sacrifice to Mercy Black.

Bryce unexpectedly stabs Lily in her eye. As Lily falls dead, Bryce tells his aunt that he made a promise. Mercy Black manifests behind Bryce. Marina screams.

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Review:

Irene Taylor Brodsky’s HBO documentary “Beware the Slenderman” (review here) covered the notorious 2014 incident known as the “Slender Man stabbing.” Believing they could become the creepypasta icon’s loyal proxies by offering a human sacrifice, two twelve-year-old girls lured an unsuspecting classmate into Wisconsin woods where they proceeded to stab her 19 times. The victim thankfully survived, although three families faced hard roads of recovery as the perpetrating pair headed toward untold years of mental institution therapy.

While not the first movie or TV show to do so, “Mercy Black” fashions its fiction from that tragic case. It follows the true crime’s base details so closely that denouncements of “too soon” have justified grounds to complain about exploitive insensitivity. Nevertheless, “Mercy Black” turns that template into a standard spookshow that’s adequate for a disposable one-and-done watch, but not much else.

As a little girl, Marina thought she found the answer to her mother’s terminal illness in her friend Rebecca’s strange story. Rebecca told Marina the imaginary urban legend of Mercy Black, an eerie entity who seeks out sad children to take away what hurts them, but only in exchange for an offering that will give Mercy flesh and blood.

Thinking they could summon Mercy to save their families, Marina and Rebecca stabbed their friend Lily and left her for dead. Luckily, Lily survived and the same thing happened to the girls as what happened to their real-life counterparts.

Following 15 years under a psychiatrist’s eye, Marina returns home as an adult to live with her sister Alice and eight-year-old nephew Bryce. Already plagued by nightmares, old ghosts continue disturbing Marina when Alice’s true crime buff boyfriend gets nosy about the stabbing. Bryce starts digging into details too, ultimately coming to believe that Mercy Black is not only real, but that she is haunting the family’s home.

When Marina starts seeing strange things again, others assure her the horrors are all in her head. Marina isn’t so certain. Someone has targeted her for terror, and that someone may be Mercy Black. One way or another, Marina will have to confront her past to uncover the truth about Mercy’s legend.

Unlike the tragedy that inspired it, there isn’t a whole lot to discuss when it comes to “Mercy Black.” Virtually everything about it is unremarkable. I don’t use that word as an insult, but as the equivalent of a “no big deal” to express that there is nothing particularly noteworthy about the movie.

“Mercy Black” doesn’t have any of the peppy personality of writer/director Owen Egerton’s previous feature “Blood Fest” (review here). Although that film is humorous horror and “Mercy Black” excludes comedy completely, “Blood Fest” still has a jazzy streak in its spirited step that gives it a distinctly discernible identity.

Here, Egerton opts for plain bagel seasoning, leaving “Mercy Black” to casually amble as a predominantly nondescript thriller. “Mercy Black” can be categorized in unexciting terms starting with ‘S’ such as subdued, straightforward, or skeletal. It’s a storytelling choice, likely influenced by a low budget, to feature a minimal number of characters and complications in the simple script. But given that low level of overall ambition, it’s a logical response for viewers to shrug shoulders and quickly move on to something more memorable.

Acting, like everything else about the movie, is average. Characters are designed to be basic, and actors respond in kind with beige performances. Janeane Garofalo’s inclusion as Marina’s psychiatrist comes across as confusing rather than inspired casting. With scant screen time, Garofalo has as little to sink her teeth into as everyone else. Known for more niche appearances, she seems oddly out of place in a routine role in a routine horror film. I’d qualify “Mercy Black’s” subgenre with another adjective in that previous sentence, except its kitchen blender ending shows that the movie can’t decide exactly how grounded, supernatural, or psychological its slow-burn suspense wishes to be.

I’d be sweating right now if I were under deadline for another outlet because I’m below the range of a typical word count yet have exhausted everything there is to say about “Mercy Black.” The film is competently put together conceptually and technically as an acceptable indie effort. It’s just very much milquetoast, best described as serviceable in every regard.

Review Score: 50

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