Usually
in horror movies, the Catholic Church is our last, best refuge from demonic
evil. However, nuns and their convents are a glaring exception. From Mother Joan of the Angels to The Devil’s Doorway, bad things always
seem to happen in nunneries. Perhaps this Latvian convent is the exception.
Maybe it really can help an American woman displaying signs of the stigmata or
perhaps the sisters will lead her further astray. There is a good chance it is
too late for her regardless in Tommy Bertelsen’s Welcome to Mercy (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
Madeline
has returned to her parents’ rustic Latvian home, because she learned her ailing
father could slip away at any second. However, her estranged mother is less
than thrilled she made the effort. Reluctantly, she lets Madeline and her
granddaughter Willow in out of the blustery Baltic cold. Rather embarrassingly,
her standoffishness is vindicated when Madeline starts having violent fits.
To
protect Willow, whom Madeline nearly throttled, Father Joseph recommends she remand
herself over to the Sisters of Merciful Mercy. Evidently. They are experts when
it comes to authenticating stigmata phenomenon. Unfortunately, the Mother
Superior quickly concludes Madeline is not experiencing stigmata. Instead, it
is a manifestation of her own trauma, which Madeline will have to face, whether
she likes it or not.
Despite
all the trappings of religious horror, Mercy
segues into a mind-tripping movie when Madeline tumbles down the rabbit
hole of her own subconscious. Soon, she is flashing forwards and backwards. Her
perception is decidedly unreliable, but most of the nuns behave in a glaringly
suspicious manner, so it is tricky to form any hard and fast judgements.
Bertelsen
and screenwriter Kristen Ruhlin upend reality so many times, viewers will
completely lose their bearings. For a while, it is cool to watch a film go for
broke over and over again, but eventually Mercy
reaches a point where it becomes clear they did not have enough bread crumbs to
lead them out of the forest and had no idea how to end it all.
Still,
there is no denying the film’s sinister atmosphere or the darkly surreal
imagery summoned up during Madeline’s bad trips. Mercy is totally intense throughout the second act and most of the
third, but there is no punctuation mark to go at the end. Nevertheless, Ruhlin
is totally convincing as the freaked out and profoundly alienated Madeline.
Watching her get dragged through one Hell after another is absolutely
harrowing.
As
Father Joseph, Latvian theater legend Juris Strenga is also all kinds of weird,
but in a way that is hard to pin down (besides his crazy hair). However, Lily
Newmark (from Pin Cushion) eventually
steals the film as August, the friendly young novice nun—with a secret.
This
is a well-crafted film that is admittedly quite effective in the moment, but
the abrupt and untidy conclusion does not pay-off on viewers’ considerable
investment in the preceding madness. It is better than most lazy exercises in
low budget horror, but Don’t Go with
Stephen Dorff is much more successful at blowing apart and then magically
re-assembling reality. Basically, Mercy is
a lot like Sister Act, but it is less
blatantly the instrument of Satan’s will. Recommended for hardcore fans of psychological
and nunsploitation horror, Welcome to
Mercy opens this Friday (11/2) in New York, at the IFC Center.
