Death Wolves, Weeping Books, Axe murderers…What will happen if you cram many horror elements into a screenplay when you are trying to adapt a short story into a movie? Is it going to elevate the horror or is it going to bog down and confuse the viewer? This 2014 horror movie, Mercy is based on Stephan King’s short story Gramma. There are many horror elements in the movie which are not present in the original short story.
Original story is simple and straightforward. Little George is an 11 years old boy. He is home alone with his disabled grandmother because his mother has to left him to go to the hospital because her other son has broken his leg. George is scared of his grandmother. He does not have even a single happy memory of his Gramma. When the sun starts to go down and his mother is late, scary thoughts start to seep into little George’s mind. He starts to think that his grandmother is a witch. He is basically scaring himself to death with these thoughts. Then he finds out that his Gramma has died on his watch. George feels relief because now it doesn’t matter whether his Gramma was a witch or not since she is dead. But a new fear unlocks. Now George is home alone with a dead body. Almost all of the story is about how this little kid deals with his fears. We can read about his internal monologues. When you think that the story is over, a massive plot twist happens. Dead Gramma rises from the dead and grabs her little grandson. At this point there is no doubt. Gramma is definitely a witch. She switches her frail, old, useless body with George’s young body. When George’s mother comes home she finds strangely behaving George and her mother’s lifeless body.
So how does the movie version deviate from the short story? Buried under all unnecessary plotlines, the original plot from the short story is still there in the movie, except for a one major change. In the short story, George and Gramma never had a loving bond. George saw her for the first time when he was 6 years old. At that time Gramma was already bedridden. Gramma’s demands for hugs made little George cry. He refused to even go near her. In the movie George says that Gramma is his best friend. George loves to visit his grandmother. In my opinion, this flip of the relationship dynamics removes the sense of fear from the air. When you read the short story you can feel it there, hanging in the atmosphere, slowly making little George terrified to be in the empty house, alone with his Gramma. As readers we can see George’s inner monologues trying to dismiss that fear of his grandmother as an irrational, childish feeling. More he tries to do that more flashbacks bring up memories to solidify his fear that Gramma actually can be a witch. Removing that from the movie doesn’t make sense because everyone else in the movie fears grandma. She kind of has a terrorizing effect on people around her. Grandma had 3 children, triplets. George’s mother left her as soon as she became 18 years old because it was hard to live with her mother. Gramma’s other two children, who were unfortunate enough to be stuck with her, had to face the worst of her. Her son became an alcoholic and her other daughter ended up in a nuthouse. Even the people in her nursing home were quick to get rid of Gramma. When everyone else saw darkness in Gramma, only George found her as a sweet old lady. It is bit odd, doesn’t make sense.
Witch bloodline
If you really want to make sense about George and Gramma’s bond in the movie, there is a way to do that. It looks like some kind of witchy thing runs through the family bloodline. Gramma got her powers from a spell book called Weeping Book. Gramma’s grandmother, George’s great-great-grandmother was holding the same book in an old photo. As per great-great-grandmother’s tombstone, her name was Eve MacGregor and she was alive from 1862 to 1950. So she had lived 88 years. There is a photo of Gramma Eve which was taken in 1932. So she should be 70 years old when it was taken. But she looks way younger than a 70 year old woman in that photo. In her hands she was holding The Weeping Book. May be she was using the book to stay healthy. Even after her death, her grave still holds some kind of magic.
After her, George’s Gramma got the Weeping Book. She used it to have babies because otherwise she was destined to be barren. She had triplets: George’s mom, Uncle Lanning and Aunt Jinny. According to Uncle Lanning, Aunt Jinny also like Gramma. So at first Gramma and Jinny got along well until Jinny met a boyfriend. Jinny left Gramma. Gramma let loose her fury on the new couple. Boyfriend died from a mysterious animal attack. Jinny ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Even from the hospital Aunt Jinny was trying to contact George to warn him about Gramma. Aunt Jinny was sensitive to paranormal things. In this family Great-Great-Gramma Eve, Gramma, Aunt Jinny and finally little George, all of them were connected to this dark power. Maybe that’s why George found his grandmother delightful when everyone else was terrified of her.
In the short story George’s family seems like an ordinary family except for Gramma. It never explains how Gramma got her books, where are they now? Or how many books were there? Did she get her powers solely through studying these books? Or did she come from a bloodline of witches? As readers we don’t know answers for these questions. In my opinion it increases the suspense of the story. In the story little George was an outsider to all these witchy things. So he was utterly terrified. But the movie George already knew many things about magical world and he was part of it. So he wasn’t afraid of his Gramma like story George. In fact, he stood up to Gramma and survived her.
Axe murderer and a haunted house
In the story George’s family moved into a new house, not by their own choice. Gramma was getting old and progressively getting weak. Grandpa, who was a working man until the day he died, passed away from a heart attack, leaving behind elderly Gramma. Gramma refused to go to a retirement home. She wanted to live her last years with one of her children. Her word is the law in that family, so there was no question-someone had to take her in. George’s mother Ruth was a widow. So everyone else in the family forced Ruth’s hand to accept Gramma. As a compensation they had pooled money and bought a cheap house in a rural area so she could move in with Gramma. They did not have any history in that house. It was just a normal house.
But in the movie they had make it a haunted house. Movie house was 150 years old. Great-Great-Gramma Eve was also buried in that land. House was old and creaky. George used to joke that there are Haints in that house which is a colloquial term for restless spirits. Actually there is a restless spirit in that house. That is none other than George’s own grandfather. He is a ghost and an axe murderer. He murdered himself with his own axe. It still baffles me how he split his head in two using his own axe. His entire role was to bring his axe to George so George could attack Gramma. It obviously did not work. Gramma was already dead, so splitting her head wasn’t going to stop her from getting back up. Movie Grampa was an unlucky man. First his wife couldn’t have babies. Then she turned into witchcraft to get babies. Watching his wife going down in a dark path made him an angry, alcoholic man. He couldn’t bare it. So he took his own life and became a ghost.
In contrast, story Grampa was a lucky man, in fact he was too lucky to be good. At first his wife couldn’t have babies, so she turned in to her books. She was able to have 9 children. Gramma lost her job and both of them were expelled from their church because of Gramma’s books. But otherwise they were financially stable. As a carpenter Grampa got more jobs than regular folks, even in economically difficult times. He practiced his trade right up until his death. He died from a heart attack when he was in his 70s.
The Familiar
If you think an axe murderer is unnecessary for this movie, wait until you see Jim Swann. Jim was a neighbor and a family friend. He was more than a friend to George’s mother. But it was a long time ago. George’s mother left her home to join the army, married another man, and had two kids. By the way her husband is alive and well in the movie. Jim also got married and living with his artist wife. George’s mother and Jim still have feelings for each other, that’s not a surprise. The surprise is that when George went to him asking for help, he took George hostage at gunpoint and tried to deliver him back to Gramma. Apparently Grandma had promised him George’s mother if he help her to get George.
His demise was hilarious. George escaped from him and ran into the night. Right as he gave up the chase, Jim saw huge, glowing wolf eyes in the dark. It scared him and he took few steps back toward his car. A pickup truck came crashing across the screen and took Jim Swann’s character with it. No explanations were given for what happened to him or how a pickup truck materialized in the literal middle of nowhere. At first, I thought that Aunt Jinny was behind the wheel because at this point she had already escaped from the mental hospital to help George to get away from Gramma. But no, she was in a totally different car.
In the story Gramma has no familiars. And George’s mother has no old flames who are trying to get back with her.
The Death Wolf
Two glowing eyes which scared Jim was belong to The Death Wolf. According to Jim Swann’s wife, the Death Wolf is in the same category as Hellhounds. It comes looking for lost souls to drag them into the hell. One important thing is that the Death Wolf is coming for wicked people. It came for Jim Swann because he was a wicked man. He was ready to sacrifice a little boy so he could get back with that child’s mother. But why was it after George? George thought that it was after him because his actions led to the death of Uncle Lanning. He felt responsible for his death. It was a stupid mistake. George had switched Gramma’s medicine with saline thinking that he was helping her. It gave Gramma enough strength to kill Uncle Lanning. That is not enough reason to let loose a Hellhound on a poor child. If that was the reason, then why did it go away after George defeated Gramma? Entire Death Wolf thing is confusing and unnecessary for this movie.
Doomed child
The Death Wolf may have sensed something inherently evil in George’s soul. Aunt Jinny called George and said that Gramma’s spirit had visited her to inform what it wants. By It, I think she meant Hastur. Jinny said “it’s you George. It’s always been you.” It seems like Hastur had his evil eyes set upon George from the beginning. Even Hustur itself confirmed that it wanted to possess George. But why? What’s so special about George? Even the ending was bit confusing. Did that evil entity get inside George or not?
In the story I did not feel anything special about George. He was simply in a wrong place at a wrong time when Gramma was needing a new body.
Books vs The Weeping Book
In the story, source of Gramma’s witch powers is a mystery. We know she learned spells from some books, but we have no idea about their origin, how many books were there? Or where are they now? That’s not important to the story. What we need to know is that Gramma is a witch and George is in danger.
In the movie, Gramma learned witchcraft from the Weeping Book. She dug it up from a hill near her house. Her grandmother Eve also had the Weeping Book with her as seen in a 1932 photo. Normally its pages are empty. User has to drop their tears onto the book while thinking about what they desire. Then the book will reveal a spell to the user. The book does not grant any wishes. User still needs to perform spells or rituals according to the book. Then what on earth did George do in the end? He just shed a tear on the Weeping Book and everything went back to normal. Big bad Hastur just abandoned his claim on George. If he defeated Hastur by following his Gramma’s advice “you have to be brave, you have to stand up.” Then the entire ending is bit ridiculous.
Snake and music
That’s not even a good advice. It was a horrible advice in the original context when she said it to George. She basically asked a little kid to stand his ground against an aggressive, venomous snake and play music to it. Don’t try to do that folks. If a snake shows its warning signs like in this case rattle snake sounding its rattle or cobra rearing up and flaring its hood or some other snakes rearing up and flattening their necks that means you are in its space. If you are stupid enough to stand your ground you could get bitten. In such a situation you only need to do is take few steps back without blocking its path. Snake will just leave.
That entire scene was corny. Why Great-Great-Gramma Eve is sending snakes from her grave to strike people? Playing music to a snake when snakes don’t even have ears to hear it. And changing the rattle snake to another snake to shoot the scene where the snake slither between George’s feet hoping that viewers wouldn’t catch the switch up and notice that it was in fact two totally different snakes.
Gramma gave this little lesson so George could face his bullies. George did not simply stay brave and stand his ground against his bullies. He took the fight to them and dropped the biggest one there as a warning to not to mess with him. A pile of rocks in a violin case won that fight for him.
So trying to convince the viewers that Gramma’s advice “You have to be brave. You have to stand up” and a single tear were enough to banish a powerful evil entity who was already determined to take George feels like lazy writing to me.
It could have been either showing the evil being taking hold of George like in the original story or George fighting back the evil and defeating it. He could have used many thing for the final fight: his imaginary girlfriend who turned out to be the spirit of his Gramma, that random Verbena plant, or the Death Wolf. At least give us a proper closure. I’m still not sure whether the Hastur is inside possessing George or not.
Imaginary friend and Hastur
I actually like their decision to show Hastur puppeteering Gramma’s corpse. My interpretation about the short story is that whatever evil thing jumped from Gramma’s body into George’s body wasn’t actually Gramma. I had a feeling that Gramma was long gone. Movie shows the same idea. Gramma’s spirit is wandering around, visiting George and Aunt Jinny while some dark entity is possessing Gramma’s body. And that entity tries to possess George, not Gramma’s spirit.
My only criticism is that they jumped the gun with the imaginary girl character. It was revealed that she was not a real person on her very first scene. Maybe the idea was to show her first as a figment of George’s imagination. And then in the final plot twist reveal her as not an imaginary person but the real spirit of George’s Gramma. Should have left her as an ambiguous character so the viewers could give their own interpretations to what she really is: a real girl, George’s imaginary friend, Gramma’s spirit, a demon, etc.…
It is not an easy task to adapt King’s Gramma story into a movie because almost entire story progresses with internal monologues of a scared child. In order to pull it off, you need a very talented child actor who is skilled at showing emotions and also very good at voice acting. And a director who knows how to generate horror using environment and atmosphere like how they did in The Exorcist. In a The Twilight Zone episode they had tried their best to bring this story to the TV screen. It does not have my favorite part of the story which is dead Gramma getting out of her bed and coming to get little George. Otherwise, they had done a solid job. Gramma’s creature design is scary.
I could enjoy the movie because I already know the story. I just filtered out unnecessary story arcs treating them as noise. But to a person who are not familiar with the short story, this movie could feel confusing. And I don’t blame them if they find it a mediocre horror movie with story arcs that go nowhere.
Even though there are far better movies like The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) where the monster is a corpse, Gramma in the short story scares me more. But unfortunately Mercy fails to show the real power of Gramma and why she is more dangerous than someone like Jane Doe.
Leave a Reply