This film made me jump out of my seat several times - not because of fright, but because boredom made me find other things to do with my time.
An engaging psychological thriller, Mercy Black delivers some frightening chills. Fifteen years after sacrificing a playmate to a spirit named Mercy Black Marina Hess is released from a mental hospital, but a series of strange occurrences causes her to question her sanity and whether Mercy is real. Daniella Pineda gives a strong performance and the script does a good job at building the mystery and at teasing out what happening in Marina’s youth. And director Owen Egerton gives the film an atmospheric and foreboding tone. Still, it tries one twist too many at the end, which kind of mucks up the story a bit. Yet despite a few weaknesses, Mercy Black is a solid horror film full of suspense and intrigue.
Not really worth watching - long and dry movie. Was mildly entertaining in parts but had to skip through some to get to the end. Would’ve been better as a comedy.
Review by Saint PaulyBlockedParent2020-05-08T23:47:17Z
Mercy Black is like a black and white water color on glass: there's isn't a solid foundation to show us clearly what to to fear. Because the mythology of the entity isn't developed at the outset, whenever they trot out her tired old bones, we don't know what it was is we're supposed to be afraid of. It's a ghost story with no story, no goal for the protagonist to fight for so as it's a tale with no direction, it goes nowhere.
Based on the Slender Man true crime story (two 12-year-old girls lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times [she would survive] in order to prove that the fictitious Slender Man spirit really existed), Mercy Black (the name of the film's version of Slender Man) picks up the story 15 years later, when one of the young perpetrators is released from the mental hospital.
After that the film becomes a series of jump scares, shocks that are just nightmares, random deaths to keep us aware, some WTFs that made me literally laugh out loud, and a surprise ending that surprised me by how little I cared. In the hit and miss Blumhouse horror catalog, Mercy Black will fall in the former.