Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Mercy’ (2014)

Written by Scott Edwards

​Watching your loved ones get old is never easy. With them helping you through all of your life challenges and making sure you come out on top, it is sad to not be able to help them when it seems they need it the most. As you get older, it becomes easier to believe that you might have to go through the same things that you have seen them go through, but will you be able to handle it as gracefully as they seemed to?

Growing up with a single mother, George has found that he enjoys spending his time talking with Mercy, his grandmother. George knows that his mother loves him dearly and cares for him, he just finds it easier to talk to his grandmother about everything, allowing for him to gain more of the precious knowledge she’s picked up over the years. When Mercy told him once, that it was okay to stand up for himself and not be scared of anyone, George took it literally and would follow her lead for the rest of his life.

After Mercy suffers a stroke, the nursing home decides that it is too much for them to take care of her anymore. It has been years since George has seen his best friend in the flesh and is looking forward to helping his grandmother in her final days. Rebecca, his mother and Buddy, his older brother, however, are not looking forward to taking on the task, but will do what they can to make Mercy as comfortable as possible. Seeing his grandmother when she is sick takes its toll quickly on George as he remembers her being young and full of life, but now being next to a lifeless body, he is dying to find a way to bring her back.

But as George starts to talk to people around the town, including his uncle, he finds out that his grandmother was not as pleasant and nice as he remembers her, but instead was quite the bitter woman. As he hears of her being cruel to her children, he talks to the town’s priest who tells the boy what really happened to his favorite person. As Mercy was never able to have the children she wanted so badly, she trekked up into the mountains one day and came back with a book and a secret. Being pregnant by someone other than her late husband, she always had luck on her side. But with each miracle that was given to her over the years, Mercy seemed to lose a bit of her good-natured self and is slowly becoming something more dangerous. George will do anything to help her and with an assist from his brother, they find a book that she buried years ago and as the pages start to reveal themselves to the boys, they find that there is something bad on the horizon, and it’s all courtesy of the woman who is dying in their new home.

This is a very intriguing story as you get into the movie. With a young man who just so happens to be scared of everything, his grandmother teaches him that his fear is not okay, and he will need to stand up for himself. Seeing how the lesson makes the young boy stronger, it is hard to imagine that this kind old woman would ever turn on him. I love how the story played out in this movie as you have several characters you can identify with as they all have to battle their own inner demons. With a lot of scares scattered throughout, there is still the feeling that they are all family and no matter what happens to any of them, that will never change...or will it? Stay Scared.

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