Stephen King: Ranking His Films From Worst To Best

31. Mercy

Mercy is another expansion on a short story, this time Gramma from the collection Skeleton Crew. King was going for a H.P. Lovecraft vibe with his brief tale of a young kid terrified of his elderly grandmother, whose fears turn out to be pretty sound. Again, it's the sort of thing that just about works as a short story, but utterly collapses when you try to spin it out for ninety minutes. And again, that's despite Mercy having a decent cast - the kid is played by Chandler Riggs, aka Carl from The Walking Dead; Mark Duplass and Dylan McDermott also pop up - and a fairly basic, creepy story to tell. The filmmakers decided to go the route of modern hit horror films as opposed to creeping Lovecraftian horror, though, but the low budget and mediocre script ensured it'd never reach either the artistic or commercial heights of Insidious or The Conjuring.