Out on Netflix right now is a horror film called Mercy Black. The trailer looked good. Sort of made it sound like another monster-of-the-week film, but I felt it had potential. Who I originally took for Shannon Doherty turned out to be Daniella Pineda, but she was pretty good in a role that basically wanted her to be alternately dread-filled, trembling and unnerved, and occasionally full-out screamingly frightened for two hours.
Filling out the cast are Lee Eddy as a wonderful librarian, Elle LaMont as the very frazzled sister of Marina (Ms. Pineda's character), Miles Emmon doing a star turn as Ms. LaMont's young son, and Janeane Garofalo as Marina's psychologist.
So what's the issue? Well, here's IMDb's brief story outline:
"Fifteen years after stabbing a classmate to conjure an imaginary phantom known as Mercy Black, Marina Hess is coming home. She's being released from psychiatric care to live with her sister and young nephew. But in the years since her crime, the myth of Mercy Black has gone viral inspiring internet rumors, stories, and even copycat crimes. Marina is haunted by what she has done and the phantom she imagined. Though she would rather leave the past buried, her nephew becomes increasingly obsessed with Mercy Black. To save him, Marina must face her past and uncover the truth behind Mercy Black. What she discovers is a very real and very deadly horror that will stop at nothing to claim her and her nephew."Which doesn't really describe the film that well, actually.
The basic outline: In a plot device stolen directly from modern-day headlines, a somewhat disturbed girl convinces a friend to help her stab a third female classmate, because--and this is how direct it gets--"Mercy Black" lives in the woods, in a house that is not a house, and must be placated with human sacrifice to take their pain away. It's extremely derivative.
And it goes on its derivative way--the two girls get the friend into the woods, a finger of the friend is chopped off and tossed into the lake, and then they wait for Mercy Black to show up. The last flashback moment is young Marina looking out across the lake and screaming.
We then flash forward, to the last day adult Marina is in psychiatric care. Since childhood, she's been a ward of the state, in psychiatric lockdown. Her doctor has decided it's time to leave. We have no real idea of her age, but we assume she's at least in her twenties, because she doesn't appear eighteen.
With some trepidation, she leaves, returning to the guardianship of her sister, who has a young son by a father that has either absconded or died. (We're never told.) The child is quite serious, unexpectedly so. And hijinks ensue--things like his so-called friend coming over randomly to engage in power-over games which young Bryce dislikes, or standing motionless at Marina's bedside while she's having nightmares.
And from there, it's pretty traditional--sister is dating a jerk who wants to make money off Marisa's pain; town hears the "child killer" has returned to town and does their bit to make her life hell; Bryce spends time with the local librarian, asking her about Mercy Black, only to learn that the invented monster has apparently gone viral, with imitation murders, suicides with notes left mentioning Mercy Black, and scads of fanart from the unhealthily obsessed.
But here's where the interesting thread sneaks in. Marina was hospitalized, not jailed, because it was ascertained she was schizophrenic. Now, I am not crazy about mental illness = danger and homicidal impulses, but here it does seem to work. And, as we move through the scenes, there is a lot that can be interpreted as, Marina is not completely healed yet--she has nightmares, she sees things, she hears things. There is a very real part of this film that keeps popping up, that everything happening is quite likely all in her mind.
When things go off the rails--as, in any horror film, they surely will--there are thin threads of plot that seem to suggest Bryce may be the victim of hereditary schizophrenia. Which is not all that common, but does happen, and I was willing to suspend disbelief on this point. Even two-thirds of the way through the film, the indications are strong that Marina is slipping, and Bryce may be starting the slide into madness as well.
Marina's former psychologist is called by her sister, and she decides from that conversation to take a short leave of absence to see if speaking in person with Marina will tell her whether she's stable, or needs to go back to the ward. While that is going on, Bryce--who has gone off the rails himself--is attempting the murder of his so-called friend, and talking to the vent in his room, believing that Mercy Black is in the walls and asking him to promise her things to become physically incarnate in this world, so she can help him more. It's unnerving whether we believe it's a haunting or a mental concern, it works either way.
There's a lot of deathing. That's not surprising, it's a horror film. What was surprising to me is that Marina, fighting her own fear, actually finds the house that is not a house, and descends into it, and discovers nothing more than a dummy dressed as Mercy and the kind of childhood treasures that believing kids would gather. This pretty much clinches the "it's all in her mind" plot. Great, case closed, creepy film, good visuals, wrap it up...right?
But no. No, in a huge plot twist, the librarian is revealed to be the sacrificed childhood friend, who actually wanted to be sacrificed. She's killed most of the people who died to get to this point. Worse, the dressed-up mock Mercy comes to life underground, and Marina has to fight for survival. This makes no sense with all the work they've done to make this a psychological thriller. And the worst blow of all--the film ends with young Bryce having murdered his first person, while the dread presence of Mercy Black floats behind him.
So...is it all in Marina's mind? Is it an actual demonic presence? Is it another person on a murderous rampage? PICK one, movie, you can't have it going all these directions! It's confusing.
While I enjoyed the first half, I admit, the notes they drew out of the latter part turned me cold. And I ended up giving a thumbs down on Netflix, for all that the acting was actually decent, the setting worked, and the plot--for the first half, at least--worked. Ultimately, disappointing, which is all the more depressing because it could have been amazing, and stopped itself from being so.
In other news, I count two items that fit the "shabby chic" aesthetic at Shiny Shabby. Do any of the organizers actually know what "shabby chic" IS as a design style??
Shabby chic has nothing to do with nail polish, monochromatic furniture, tropical gowns. It's all about the faded and vintage. Tea-dyed fabrics, vintage ticking fabric, shades of pale rose, pale blue, ecru, sage, beige. The overall vibe is both feminine and worn--either actually vintage distressed antiques, or faux- distressing techniques, using white or cream paint under glaze with lightly applied sandpaper to the wood. There's a French Provincial sub-category, where everything is mercury glass, faded vintage lace, cabbage rose florals. There's another sub-category of Coastal, where the main tones are faded sea or sky blues and teals, tones of sand, pale green, rock grey. Where the main design details are fishing floats and netting, white-painted slats, bare branches and sea grasses in clear glass holders.
What Shiny Shabby is doing with the event is horrific. It's become just another shopping event, no style, no individuality, no originality, and certainly, very little offered for sale that actually is shabby chic. I am disappointed.
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