Let the Shortening Begin With Some Woodsy Terror!

Check your calendar! It's the shortest month of the year (made slightly longer this time around) which means it's the TENTH annual Shortening!

For those new to the blog, The Shortening is simply a month where we celebrate horror all things little: deadly dolls, killer kids, infectious insects, you get the idea. As is often the case, bad seeds tend to dominate, so let's start this year's celebration off with the moral depravity of the American tweenager.

Quick Plot: Rachel and Kaitlyn are 11-year-old outcasts about to discover they're neighbors. Rachel has just moved to town following the separation of her parents, while Kaitlyn's overworked mother (Angela Kinsey from The Office) struggles to care for her family, including a well-meaning husband trying to manage his own (not named, but clear) schizophrenia. 

A lonely school bus ride is all it takes for Rachel and Kaitlyn to connect, much to the chagrin of Kaitlyn's best (and only) friend Emily. Where Rachel and Kaitlyn bond over dark urban legends, Emily prefers to chatter nonstop about fairies. Like all middle school female friendships, nothing lasts forever.

And, much like MANY a middle school female friendship, the deeper the bond, the more dangerous the girls.

Kaitlyn, you see, hears voices, and the more she and Rachel dig into their favorite scary story (Slender Man stand-in Suzerain) the louder they seem to get. Always a lonely child, Rachel is so thrilled to have a friend that she never notices that Kaitlyn might have other forces at work. Together, they dive deeper into Suzerain lore, convincing themselves and each other that their families have become the prime target of the murderous internet demon. The only way to save those they love is to sacrifice an innocent, and unsuspecting Emily becomes the perfect lamb. 

"Inspired by true events" is a phrase that usually makes my stomach turn or eyes roll. I tend to prefer my horror be guilt-free and imaginary, so the idea of Lifetime tackling a fairly recent, incredibly dark true crime case seemed like it would go into irresponsible waters pretty quickly. Thankfully, this is one of that small percentage of Lifetime movies that approaches its material with actual care. 

Terror In the Woods is directed by D.J. Viola, who shows excellent skill with his very strong young cast (newcomers Ella West Jerrier and Sophie Grace). The script (written by none other than Tara Maclay herself, Amber Benson) demonstrates a clear understanding of how girls of these age bond and break. There's a careful attention paid to making sure Kaitlyn and Rachel aren't just newspaper articles come to life, but real lonely young women whose friendship fed into something very, very dark. 

While Terror In the Woods doesn't cross into Emmy-worthy territory, it manages to be quite compelling as a study of confused teenagers, mental illness, and the dangers of good intentions. This isn't a Lifetime movie that aims to spawn memes. It wants to take a famous, fascinating crime and look at how the people involved came to commit it. For a network whose commercial breaks gleefully revel in next week's stepson love triangle, that's pretty impressive. 

High Points

As anyone who's heard me praising the otherwise pretty maligned #Horror knows, few things are scarier than the simultaneous thrills and dangers of preteen female friendship, and Terror In the Woods understands this both in its performances and script

Low Points

Look, this is still a "ripped from the headlines" Lifetime cash-in on a real-life tragedy, and it's not entirely easy to shake the ickiness factor. That being said, the act of violence that everyone is waiting for is handled with genuine weight and never feels exploitive

Lessons Learned

11 is a prime time for grossness

Die with a pillow on your face and you won't feel pain

Furniture store bathrooms are a superb home base for murder cleanup

Rent/Bury/Buy

I'm not saying Terror In the Woods is the 21st century Heavenly Creatures, but it's a surprisingly effective and heartbreaking dramatization of a case already documented too many times. I can't say how it compares to the pile of horror movies already made (well actually, I can at least say it's deeper than Mercy Black) but it's certainly better than the token Law & Order: SVU episode done on the same topic. It's not exactly fun, but anything tackling material like this probably shouldn't be. 

Have Mercy & Turn the Lights On

If Henry Lee Lucas inspired its share of '80s horror and Jeffrey Dahmer the '90s, it seems almost surprising that the 2010s haven't seen more creepypasta-inspired fare. 

Quick Plot: As an impressionable tween, Marina and her pal Rebecca fell into a Slender Man-ish partnership, murdering(?) a friend in the name of a masked scarecrow named Mercy Black. Marina spent the next fifteen years in a mental hospital under the care of sympathetic Janeane Garafolo. Now a grown woman with great eyebrows, Marina is released into the care of her older, sympathetic but slightly world-weary single mom sister Alice.

Life hasn't been great for Alice, but she's holding up well enough in her childhood home. Son Bryce is a thoughtful, pleasant enough kid whose only real trauma stems from missing his deadbeat dad. Alice's new boyfriend is a scummy true crime buff who views Marina's return as his big chance to write the kind of book that lands him on All Things Considered. His probing questions unsettle Marina, who begins to feel the presence of the monster she had long blocked out.

Has Mercy Black returned, even if she was never quite real in the first place? Bryce begins to fall under her spell as Marina desperately tries to unlock the mystery that has taken over her life. Lairs are unlocked, library books destroyed, and everybody's favorite Gen Xer has a bad time in the woods. 

Mercy Black is a Blumhouse production, and based on its quiet drop on Netflix, not one it had too much faith in. Written and directed by Owen Egerton, it was certainly never going to do Paranormal Activity or even, say, Happy Death Day numbers. It feels like the kind of small budget but handsomely produced film specifically designed to be watched on a mobile device.

The best thing Mercy Black has going for itself is its cast. Daniella Pineda is incredibly watchable, even if the math involved in her detainment seem a little messy (15 years in a hospital would mean she had plenty of experience with that crazy internet in 2004). Elle LaMont looks and feels like Pineda's sister, and their relationship--cautious but caring--is easily established by the actresses. 

Unfortunately, Egerton's script doesn't really serve them consistently. There are so many holes in the sequence of events, with large, gaping details that never add up. The film is filled with interesting characters whose motivations are never even explained, meaning the major conflict of the climax has no real emotional resonance. The fact that Mercy Black is such a short, focused story makes this even more frustrating. A horror novelist, Egerton clearly has good instincts with the genre. It's a shame that Mercy Black just isn't tight enough to let them really hit.

High Points

I'll give bonus points to any movie that names its dog after my favorite Muppet

Low Points

...even if said dog befalls a tragic fate

Also, as I skim through screenshots to find some usable images, it confirms just how literally DARK Mercy Black is, making it frustrating in that you can't actually SEE much

Lessons Learned

Changing your identity will age you a good ten years faster than your peers

When librarians have questions, they head to the internet

Psychiatric hospitals are a wonderful training resource for shaping your eyebrows

Rent/Bury/Buy

There are good things to be found in Mercy Black, but it's sadly not cohesive enough to be satisfying. Slender Man aficionados may enjoy its take on the trope, and for a 90 minute Netflix watch, it's decent enough. But perhaps its potential makes that even more frustrating.