Almost Mercy (2015)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

South Greenwich, Rhode Island was an industrial town, but most of the industry is gone. Emily lives in the nice section of town, but to get home, she must deal with bullies. The good news, for Emily at least, is that Tony, one of the bullies, dies in a horrible incident involving his mother's cheating on her husband, which results in several deaths. And getting back to Emily, you have to wonder how she can live in such a nice house, since her mother mainly lies in bed and drinks or thinks about how to improve her appearance. Later it is revealed that her father isn't around much, so somehow he is paying for everything.Emily narrates the movie, and we soon learn how Emily and Jackson became friends. Jackson moved to town with his family, although I'm not quite clear on why. I thought it was job-related and maybe it was. The important thing is that Jackson is the new weird kid at school. Emily also being a weird kid, she makes friends with Jackson. But we don't see much of their early years. We keep going back and forth from the past to the present, and then we don't see the early years of Emily and Jackson any more, until a flashback. The flashback involves their visit to the grave of Mercy Brown, a girl who went through a horrific experience nearly 100 years earlier and even after her death, her body is defiled. It's not pleasant. This is where the movie's title comes from.What we know in the present, almost from the movie's start, is that there has been a massacre, and the news media are speculating about how such a thing could have happened.We jump forward in time. Emily is a brooding teenager reading Sylvia Plath and "The Road". Jackson is on the football team but is still being treated like an outcast. And he has to come home and help take care of his paralyzed father who is angry with the world and drinks, smokes and does other stuff you'd rather not know about in his wheelchair, and having seizures or whatever you call it. And Jackson's getting quite tired of all of it. The coach is trying to help Emily straighten out her life, but she doesn't seem too interested. Then both Jackson and Emily each have their own terrible experience that changes everything. For Jackson, it means the end of school. For Emily, it means the start of a struggle with drugs and alcohol which leads to an incident in which the principal considers his precious football players more important than Emily.You think you will know what is going to happen. Most likely, you will be wrong.I hope I have established by now that this is not appropriate for family viewing. In fact, it is about as far from appropriate for the whole family as you can get on broadcast TV. I can only describe what I saw, but I have reason to believe I didn't see everything. The sound went out a lot, and when this happened while we saw a character talking, the character's mouth was blurred. This happened a lot with Emily. She had a mouth on her.But that's not the worst thing. You can clean up language. I think some of the violence may have been cleaned up too. Two characters listed in the credits were not shown, or at least I didn't see faces. I could see at least one body. And lots of blood. In another scene there was a curious edit that made it obvious the violence had been cut. Other violence I saw was only implied but it was still quite disturbing. And the aftermath in several scenes was also quite graphic.If I haven't said enough, one couple (the man is married but not to the woman) is into S & M. Why in the world was there not an S in the V- chip rating? We already saw way too much violence and I don't think this counts as violence.Oh, yes, and let's not forget the men who are into child porn. This is only suggested, but we know it's happening. A few scenes had music. One scene had good classical music, though that was kind of depressing even if it was upbeat. A couple of other scenes had pleasant music. Several others had depressing folk music which was at least soft. But throughout most of the movie, "music" was the often loud garbage that people who wear all black enjoy (is that the right word? They hate everything). Okay, now for the positives. There aren't nearly enough of these scenes but Emily and Jackson have a generally pleasant relationship. I like the scenes where they are just being friends. I mentioned the coach trying to help Emily, and that's a good scene too, with a good performance by the actor Kane Hodder. The suspense builds as the movie progresses. You know what's going to happen, or believe you do, and it gets exciting.And if I try to think of what is positive about the movie, Danielle Guldin's superior performance comes to mind. No, there's a lot negative about what she is going through and doing. But she's a pleasure to watch anyway.Do I recommend this movie? If you like seeing villains get what's coming to them in the most graphic way possible, perhaps.

What started out as an intelligent movie that might have had something to say about the deterioration of exurban America ended up being a juvenile rant. In order to have some sympathy for the actions of the protagonist her victims are portrayed as depraved hypocrites, but none of their actions forgive the infantile response of Emily. In fact, the only person who deserves more than humiliation is the pedophile priest.The two girls with the jerky jock kids are just innocent bystanders. What was their sin? Bad taste in dudes? Killing the relatively sweet but dumb coach was the act that lowered Emily to a level far below her victims. His "evil" was so banal as to be immaterial. There is no message here, only a childish temper tantrum.

I came by this movie by accident, I saw it under the horror genre and what struck me was the casting Bill Mosely (House of 100 Corpses) and Kane Hodder (Friday The 13th) so I was already expecting something good but unique and I wasn't disappointed... It wasn't even the well known actors that made it good Almost Mercy follows Jackson and Emily (whom narrates throughout the film) both sociopaths waiting to explode. The young kids are bullied throughout school because there a little different deemed strange. Events start to build up as they enter senior year, Emily finds drugs and partying whilst Jackson find guns this ultimately leaves him 2 months in an institution. During that time we see more into there home life which isn't so bad until Emilys mum kills herself and Jacksons dad he leaves to die.The dramatic part of the film is the ending, Jackson has plans to shoot up his school Emily not in agreement. Jackson couldn't go through with it at the gates and is caught and arrested. Dubbed the stronger of the two across the film will Emily finish of what Jackson had planned If you want something different this is for you even avid horror fans will enjoy this. Its a dark film more so in the content and issues, from high school shooting to a church paedophile ring exposed and cliché teenage drama, Its worth a watch or two nd should get a load more credit

Something for every horror fan. To me a great horror film is one that I have to divert my eyes at least once...this film has done it. A film with a solid story. A film with solid characters. A film with a soundtrack that allows your mind to be hypnotized into the world where these characters dwell. Thoughtful cinematography. Panning shots that bring the viewer into the movie and into the psyche of the characters. Casting the young actors who play the characters young Emily (Eva Senerchia) and young Jackson (Jhonah Coppolelli) was outstanding. This film deals with real world issues from social to mental. Could there be a sequel...? YES...I hope!