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Stars: Lauren Lyle, Nicolette McKeown, James Watterson
Director: Ryan Hendrick
Distributor: Bingo Films

“I hate scary stories.”

Opening with a quick, aggressive, and bloody flashback, a grim tone is immediately established.

Having inherited a few pennies and a long lost cabin, a group of friends – lead by Lauren Lyle’s Rhona – find themselves on an adventure-turned-nightmare as they trek through the Scottish Highlands. The friendship group consisting of a couple, a potential couple, and tacky “lad banter”, dictate the screen with extreme annoyance until Nicolette McKeown’s Carla, a hitchhiking Army veteran, enters the fray.

Offering her outdoor expertise – and seemingly the only person who can read a map – Carla leads the team in search of the old cabin, however, as the trek progresses and the group lurk deeper within, the true darkness of the woodland becomes apparent.

The once beautiful scenery transcends to terror as the platform for Mercy Falls becomes more atmospherically engaging the further the group delve into the woods. The always-fascinating and frightening trope of the environment existing as a character is well and truly in force here. The mystery of the unknown brings out the undiscovered and unrecognisable in the group of friends – though this is often of a sexual nature.

The two female leads – Rhona and Carla – maintain the most manipulation of the narrative, but they also boast the only interest amongst the group of characters. Both haunted by often daunting and aggressive flashbacks, both characters represent opposite sides of the trauma coin. Clearly both experiencing forms of PTSD, more sympathy is generated for Rhona, whereas Carla is deemed a murderous psychopath from her days in combat.

Rather than a full, dramatic exploration of the mental health between the contrasting leads, Mercy Falls instead, evolves into a Scottish Predator during the third act. Though it doesn’t quite pull off the extravagance from the 1987 action classic, instead, we are treated to an intense buildup, a natural conclusion to a sinister eeriness that has evolved throughout the duration of the film.

Ultimately, writer-director Ryan Hendrick has delivered a survival film driven by two excellent female performances. Equipped with an excellent score and location shooting throughout, Mercy Falls often establishes a wonderful and charming ambiance, though this trickery often finds the viewer in parallel trouble with the characters, as vicious terror and tragedy can occur out of nowhere.