Mercy Falls

There is nothing really surprising here. Mercy Falls is a thriller/horror, feels more like a thriller to me. You follow a group of friends hiking through the Scottish Highlands who picked up a spare person on the way. The pacing is great, cinematography is nice, characters are pretty believable. There's a bit of gore but nothing over the top. A few beautiful shots of the Scottish Highlands and the falls. Overall I enjoyed it and would probably recommend and watch again. Tubi has been my go to for streaming movies lately - they have so much available, and their "Tubi originals" are generally pretty entertaining.

The movie starts off with a sniff of a forest survival horror movie which there are quite a few out there these days.

They can go well and still be cheaply done but this one was good until you see the war scenes which looked so cheap and nasty that it looked as if they were taken from another movie and put into this one.

Then you get the 'yes let's have a stranger hiking with us and we know nothing about her', okay why do script writers treat their audience as if they are thick?

This would never happen in real life, come on stop treating your audience like they are thick.

Other than that the movie had some good scenes in it and the acting wasn't bad.

I am giving it a four and that was a struggle.

There is not much positive to say about this film except it's location. The story, lacking. The reasoning is nonexistent. Terrible acting by everyone involved. The script is bad. I'm not sure why this has high ratings and listed as horror on Tubi because this is not horror. At most it is a contrived blah of an attempt at a thriller. I've liked most of the Tubi originals but this one just didn't do it for me. It's boring, honestly. I could not wait for it to end. It just wasn't a good movie, overall. I'm sure many will disagree. But, if you have time to kill and want something that will barely keep your attention, this is the film for you. A 3 is generous, honestly.

This film has potential but is held short of the finish line by its middling plot and flimsy dialogue. However, the movie is visually stunning with beautiful sweeping shots of the Scottish wilderness and some very appealing shots in various scenes, the cinematography is worth a nod. Mercy Falls relies on the trope characters upon which the genre was built. And the cast work wonders to make these cliche characters work and feel believable and likable in the face of some truly poor writing. Some characters come over better than others - eg lead Lauren Lyle's performance as uninteresting protagonist, Rhona, comes over unenthusiastic aside from key moments- but overall the cast should be proud of being the highlight of the film. Layla Kirk and Nicolette McKeown are particular stand outs. Kirk brings convincing life and (more importantly) enjoyability to an otherwise lazy trope character, Heather. McKeown steers the ship as a solid antagonist, her character, Carla's story has such great potential but is underutilised by the writer(s) in favor of something much less gripping or compelling. But nonetheless she digs deep for the movie's strongest feature and her charisma will almost have you rooting for Carla to succeed in her hunt.

Every cliche you can imagine is present in this tired, derivative waste of time. There isn't much to recommend in this uninspired low budget pablum.

The story isn't terrible but you've seen it all countless times before.

The acting is amateurish in the extreme. You can't present something to an audience with this poor level of acting and expect to be taken seriously. If you are trying to create tension or chills you need better actors. There are no two ways about it.

The film isn't exciting, scary or suspenseful. It is a cheap not very cheerful filler.

In all conscience I can't recommend this.