[Film Review] Mercy Falls (2023)

Filmed on location in Scotland, Ryan Hendrick's new thriller Mercy Falls (2023) uses soaring views of the Scottish Highlands to show that the natural world can either provide shelter or be used as a demented playground for people to hurt each other. In some cases – such as the childhood flashback of a wounded horse having its throat slit that opens the film – the line between protection and harm can be blurred.

Mercy Falls (written by Hendrick and Meliá Grasska) turns what could be a simple story of friends lost in the woods into a more complex tale of friendship, betrayal, trauma and humanity. Lauren Lyle stars as Rhona, a young woman who has recruited her friends and her crush to help her locate her deceased father's old cabin in the woods near the titular Mercy Falls. 

Early on in the film, Rhona and her friends drive by a hitchhiker on the road, but ultimately decline to give her a ride. While this is a wise decision, it ultimately doesn't matter. The group – made up of Rhona; lovebirds Scott (James Watterson) and Heather (Layla Kirk); Rhona's love interest Donnie (Joe Rising); and Donnie's obnoxious friend Andy (Eoin Sweeney) – doesn't realize that the mysterious Carla (Nicolette McKeown), whom they bump into while planning their journey, is the same lone hitchhiker they spotted on the road. Mercy Falls always keeps the viewer one step ahead of the characters, who don't realize the danger they're in until it's too late.

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Carla, an experienced hiker, joins the friend group to help them navigate the wilderness on the way to the cabin. Rhona is put off by this bewitching stranger who joins in on what is sure to be an emotional journey for her; she has been estranged from her father for years, and now, she's searching for her inheritance: a cabin in the woods where her last memory is her father slitting a horse's throat while she looked on in horror.

Rhona's right to be suspicious. As Carla leads the group further into the woods, the ties that bind the friends begin to loosen at an alarming rate. Insecurities threaten Heather and Scott's relationship, ultimately leading to an argument between Scott and Andy, and a devastating injury for one of the hikers. While Donnie initially has eyes for Rhona, he's also intrigued by Carla. The connections between the friends are shockingly shaken up, and the numerous betrayals in the woods lead to a greater sense of paranoia and loss of control. This only adds to their fear of being stranded in the woods with the increasingly menacing Carla, whose dark secret is revealed in a series of flashbacks. (Again, the audience is privy to her troubling past before the other characters, slowly adding to viewers' sense of dread.)

Throughout the twists and turns of Mercy Falls, there are echoes of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, which bookish Scott reads around the campfire before the hike becomes a bloody fight for survival. Some of the challenges Greek hero Odysseus faced during his long journey home -- including the lasting trauma of battle, losing friends to acts of violence and the threat of a siren's seduction (Scott dubs the Scottish version of this temptation The Siren of the Loch) – are found throughout Hendrick and Grasska's thoughtful script. Just as Odysseus finally visits his father's farm at the end of The Odyssey, Rhona eventually arrives at her father's cabin. And just like Odysseus before her, she is changed in ways she could not have imagined at the beginning of her journey. 

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