New in theaters from Epic Pictures, Dread, and Shudder!
Directed by Jeremiah Kipp.
Written by Tracee Beebe, Brian Clarke.
Check out the trailer here!!
Willa Holland plays Rebecca, who has just become an assistant to head mortician Raymond (Paul Sparks). After finishing her initial training, Rebecca is given the day shift, while the stoic Raymond sticks to working the graveyard shift, so to speak. We come to find out that Rebecca is a recovering addict and has quite a traumatic backstory, which has led her to this ghoulish profession and a solitary lifestyle. So, when Raymond calls in the middle of the night asking for Rebecca to come in for an emergency, she has nothing else better to do than to go. What Rebecca doesn’t know is that the mortuary she works for is the front line for a battle between good and evil, where demons attempt to cross over into this world through the dead in hopes to then rise and possess a living soul. Raymond has worked for years as the guardian at the gates between hell and the living world, and
being his assistant, Rebecca must now inherit these duties in one horrifying night.
I did a bit of research on the video game THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT is based on and found out that it is best known for its subliminal and periphery scares. Where basically you walk around the dark rooms and corridors of the mortuary and you think you might have seen someone in the background and in the periphery. It is a game that not only challenges you with tasks to complete, but it also chips away at your paranoia, making one feel as if they might have seen something horrifying in the background or through a window or just around the corner. From what I gleaned, the movie stays pretty faithful to the video game, putting Rebecca through challenges and upping the stakes as time goes on. So, while this adherence to the source material don’t do much for me upon watching THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT, those diehard fans should be pleased that it doesn’t seem like much has changed in the transition from the game to movie.
But it’s tricky adapting a video game into a movie. Whereas in a game, one has a Choose Your Own Adventure-style experience and an unlimited amount of time to get through the game. The movie is limited by a singular POV as well as a set runtime to tackle the lore, the space, the characters, the plot, and then bring it all together in a sensible fashion. Director Jeremiah Kipp, who previously did SLAPFACE (a movie I wasn’t enamored with upon viewing the first time, but I’ve grown to like it since seeing it again), handles this hurdle to adapt a video game well. There is a lot of chunky exposition that needs to be explained here, and this could make for some tedious moments, but Kipp smartly parses out the info dumps in between moments of scare and action, so these moments are less annoying.
The game aspect where Rebecca has to collect runes and totems in order to complete tasks is there too. Some of them feel like they are naturally integrated into the plot as Rebecca is given a wheel where the totems are placed into to complete a spell. Others don’t translate, such as the meaning of these totems and runes and the method with which to find and collect them. This makes what should be a moody feeling of claustrophobic paranoia into more of a fantasy-based quest which seems to be ill fitting to the tone of the movie.
The monsters in the periphery are done well. This is a movie that you have to pay attention to. Kipp inserts subtle horrors like glowing red eyes in the distance when the lights go out. Or monsters lurking just outside the window. This aspect was done well, but I feel that more could have been done with this. There is a particularly monstrous creature known as the Mimic that has a terrifying design. He is only seen in shadows and out of the corner of the eye for most of the movie, which works extremely well. But at the very end, the mimic is shown out in the open and while this monster is terrifying as all get out and the FX work is pretty solid, the static shot of him for an extended amount of time in broad daylight kind of kills the mystique.
The acting is good. I first noticed Willa Holland in ARROW, and found she was one of the more talented actors on the show. As Rebecca she does a good job of being a fresh face, but one that has seen some shit in her lifetime. Rebecca’s backstory is quite arduous, and the film goes into it with a lot of detail. Aside from a few visits from demons and some side characters, this is Holland’s show and she carries that burden well.
Again, since I didn’t play the game it was based upon, I’m probably not the best person to review THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT. I jumped quite a few times and Kipp did a good job handling a nice, dreadful atmosphere. But because I haven’t played the game, this film wasn’t really made for me, so who knows how a fan of the game will take it. As a movie, it provided some solid scares, a decent performance from the lead, and some nice dark feels, which makes it a decent watch in my book. I’m mildly recommending this one, but gamers might feel differently.
