At the heart of the latest film from Director Patrick Roddy is a man—recently released from prison—trying to make his way in the world. But, with everything and everybody pushing against his success, it would seem that this man’s hopes of an idyllic life in “God’s Country” are nothing more than a pipe dream. This man is John Mercy.

John Mercy (Gary Shannon) is haunted. Haunted by a past that is creeping towards the surface—tearing at the fabric of his sanity—pushing its way through the gray matter—out of the subconscious—ripping it’s way into reality. As he moves through this desolate land, populated by street preachers and prostitutes, halfway homes and blue-collar paychecks, every step he takes is one step closer to the inevitable.

Like the repetition of the drill press he operates at his new job, John Mercy’s new found freedom is little more than a series of meandering tasks—if not designed—then determined—to keep what little spirit 20-years in prison have left him with. But Mercy is about to discover that no matter how much desire you have to move on and try to reclaim what pieces of life remain, some ghosts are far from forgotten.

Standing firmly in David Lynch territory, filmmaker Patrick Roddy succeeds in offering the same Spartan landscapes and harsh black and white cinematography of ERASERHEAD but loses steam on the base storytelling. MERCY is a gorgeously shot production, showing filmmakers that with the right skills and the right lighting, a digital production can look as good as film any day. The darkness surrounding the lead character is so enveloping and so absolute that the isolationism smacks the viewer in the face at full speed. However, the one thing this film is not, is blazing forth with all engines on go.

Like most of the Lynch oeuvre, Roddy takes his time telling the maddening tale—focusing on reiteration and interspersing the production with a slow moving score that incorporates scratchy delta blues with some minimalist piano punctuation. This visual and aural design assists the audience in understanding the utter hopelessness of his lead character. Unfortunately it also tends to drag the story along at a snails pace. And viewers that are not accustomed to arthouse fare are apt to get real bored, real quick.

The performance from Gary Shannon is a revelation though. The eerie sadness behind his eyes conveys more with a glance than most actors could provide with pages of monologue. To see John Mercy is to see the embodiment of a broken spirit. Mercy knows he’ll never see the promised land that he dreams of through a faded postcard. But he diligently makes his way through every day in service of that grand delusion. The rest of the cast hardly register—and not in a bad way. It’s just not their story. They serve the film by standing in the shadows, stepping into frame to nudge the plot progression. Roddy’s film could be taking place in the mind, but instead he has forgone that contrivance and set his project square inside his characters real life world of loneliness and despair.

Mercy’s greatest achievement is that he shows that peripheral horror cinema does not need to rely on flashy effects and buckets of blood to be terrifying. In many ways the vibe relayed here is the same that Stephen King engaged in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. The film is a character study. And one that succeeds in all respects as that beast. What makes the production problematic is in its pacing, which can at times, be dreadfully slow—and is often saved only by the nuanced performance of its star.