From the opening narration to the twee overacting, it was hard to take any message on board from this film. It felt like the film betrayed itself and went out of its way to provide gratuitous violence. I'm not personally against violence in films but it seemed badly used.
The characters became annoying caricatures as the film progressed and the protagonist was impossible to sympathise with far too early on. It seemed almost cartoon-ish in the worst possible way at the end.
I understood the idea and thought it had genuine promise. It was let down by the fact that the film neither subscribed to being a horror, a comedy or a character study. Almost Mercy was stuck in a no man's land. It was attempting to be a dark comedy but achieving none of the depth and execution of a dark comedy. It was incredibly hard to like the main characters in any way despite being the 'weird' kid once upon a time.
I felt almost insulted at times by the constant tropes, it seemed lazy and unoriginal. Which completely took away its value as a 'quirky' indie movie.
The music was often clashing with the film itself. It annoyed me multiple times. Whether it was supposed to be jarringly juxtaposed, I don't know, but I felt that many songs were poor choices.
As a positive, the female lead put in a decent performance and I could definitely see her advancing. The camera work was great and I liked a lot of the shots.
I would not recommend this film, unfortunately.
