There was very little I could turn up on the internet about this movie, leading me to believe no one really gives a crap about it. There's good reason for this: like most movie adaptations of King's stories, the plot is convoluted, the tone is that of a made for tv movie, the writing is childish, and the acting is uneven (at best). I have never seen such pathetic fake crying before this.
Alright, here's the gist:
A woman must move back to her childhood home to care for her ailing mother. Which is pretty much the identical story of Deborah Logan. "Ailing," in this case, turns out to mean, "sold her soul to the devil and is now paying the price for that sale." As you might expect. Along for the ride are the woman's two teenage sons; one wants to be a chef and the other talks to spirits. Cryptic messages are delivered, supernatural encounters are had, and oh yes, people die. Unfortunately, not nearly enough of them, if I'm honest. The ending is some bullshit, happily ever after nonsense. I was actually worried that they were going to have the soulless grandmother live. Thankfully, she doesn't.
Great segue here: what I did turn up about the source material is that it ends very differently than the movie. Apparently, King's unhappy ending didn't fly with the studio - which is a bummer because it reads way better than the movie ending.
There are shades of Pet Sematary and The Shining coloring this one, but that doesn't help the story any. Perhaps this one is the final, unequivocal proof that Stephen King loves money more than he cares about his art. Side note here: the source material is actually pretty old. My point here is that the movie version is shit and is clearly just a chance for King to make a few bucks for very little work.
I'd also like to note that I can only suspend my disbelief so far. Central to the story is a man killing himself with an axe blow to the head. Who kills themselves with an axe to the head? I guess the idea is impressively creative, if not impossible and idiotic to execute. The only redeeming piece of this movie may be the hilariously bad joke that the death by axe is called (by one of the characters) an "axe-ident." Puns. Glorious puns.
Top all this off with Dylan Mcdermott running around pointlessly in the middle of it all, still desperately trying to convince the world that he's a real actor... to no avail.
Watch it if: you like sub-par stories about selling your soul to the devil.
For your viewing displeasure, the Mercy trailer:
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