Review: Welcome to Mercy

Director: Tommy Bertelsen

Screenplay: Kristen Ruhlin

Year: 2018

In horror films, nuns have been a recurring topic and with good reason. Nuns are one of the symbols of Christianity, which makes them a perfect target to profane this belief and their innocence and loyalty makes any unholy act from their part to be twice as effective. We have seen effectively how terrifying they can be in the second season of “American Horror Story”, “The Conjuring 2”, and “The Nun” up to the point that a subgenre has been created in horror movies known as nunsploitation, where we have “St. Agatha” as one of its most recent examples. Even though I would not classify “welcome to Mercy” as a nunsploitation movie, the topic of sinister nuns and religion has an important role in it.

In “Welcome to Mercy” a young woman battles the unholy forces that possess her. After being affected by stigmata, the single mom Madaline is sent to a remote convent where nothing is what it seems, and her friend August is the only one she can trust. Together they must fight the demons inside of Madaline.

Before continuing I must say that this movie took me off guard in some respects. Something that is worked well during all of the movie is the ambiance, which is tense and sinister, depending on the visuals and sounds to achieve it. In good part dark shots are used, which help creating tension, but that in some cases it plays against as these scenes that are dark or with much camera movement makes it difficult to see clearly what is happening and forces you to have to deduct it. Still, these takes are effective creating tension and this tension is the main responsible for the jump scares to be effective, particularly the first one that arrive unexpectedly and even more so when I was not expecting this movie to use them.

What I liked the most about “Welcome to Mercy” is that it takes plenty of time to develop the main character, Madaline, and the reason that takes her to come back to her parents' house in Latvia, where the main plot problem starts to unravel. This comes together with a flaw and is that in parts the plot develops slowly, and this is something not everyone appreciates. To deeply develop the main character and her conflicts make the plot to not be superficial just to justify the jump scares but develops the topics of motherhood, abandonment, guilt, and resentment, managing that the viewer can feel for the protagonists and their conflicts. This takes the story to a more personal level and makes the terror much more effective, although it requires a certain amount of maturity for it to work. The performances are great and help the plot to feel genuine, with Kristen Ruhlin (“The Trouble with Mistletoe”) as Madaline, who also wrote the screenplay, Lily Newmark (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”) as August, and Eileen Davies (“High-Rise”) as the Mother Superior.

While the development of the plot is slow, getting to know the protagonist and her circumstances, the final minutes are frenetic. These final scenes are dramatic and take an original and unexpected turn than compensate for the slower parts. Here is where much of what happens during the rest of the movie that seems to be senseless is clarified. The very last scene was unnecessary and brakes a little with what had been achieved in the previous scenes but is not so much as to screw the ending.

“Welcome to Mercy” is a creative proposal where we have a possession story since the point of view of the possessed. While the main topic is a possession, the plot is much deeper and emotive and this, to a certain extent, help some moments to be more terrifying than what is shown. While it does have some flaws, I was impressed by what was delivered and it was a good and entertaining movie.