Macabre…ish Horror Review: The Mortuary Assistant

 

 

The Mortuary Assistant, 2026/ 1 hr 31 min

Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland) is finishing up her internship and being graded embalming a body by her boss Mr. Raymond Delver (Paul Sparks). And she graduates to doing the job on her own. Mr. Delver will be focussing on the business side of things from here on out.

 

Immediately, things start to get weird. Mr. Delver’s is a little strange but he’s not scary, what is a little scary is Rebecca has started seeing things in the mortuary and having a new sense of unease that she cannot pinpoint or shake. Because, you see, Rebecca has her own demons and is in recovery. So all the weirdness is probably nothing…

Rebecca has made her first year of sobriety and her new life as a mortuary assistant. But she has a support group and Kelly (Keena Ferguson Frasier), things are looking up. Unfortunately, that optimism won’t last because you see, Mr, Delver knows something the rest of us, the audience and Rebecca, do not. And there is no way for her to be prepared for what’s coming but she will be starting in the deep end.

Rebecca is unexpectedly called in to work at night, even though she was expressly hired for day shift. The directive is embalming and cremation, which seems weird. About as strange as the injuries on the remains.

As Rebecca finished up, her headaches are returning and she’s hearing things. And the mortuary is unusually creepy. It’s storming, the lights go out, the phone won’t stop ringing and she’s seeing things. But Rebecca keeps working and these remains have fresh injuries that don’t make sense and frankly the deceased are oddly active.

 

So active, in fact, that one has vanished from the table…

At some point, Rebecca faints then wakes up at home, confused. When her sponsor, Kelly, unexpectedly pounds on her door and scolds her for using. Rebecca is certain she didn’t relapse but then… she changes and suddenly Kelly is in danger and fighting for her life.

 

Rebecca flees to Mr. Delver and the mortuary and he attempts to explain what is happening and as expected, she’s not thrilled with all of this terrible news and can hardly believe it. But all she has to do is find out an entity’s name, the one that’s bound itself to her and banish it back to Hell. Delver has to explain to her, in hours, what has taken him years to learn. There is no time but she has to figure this out before it’s too late.

And absolutely none of this is as it seems.

 

This film is based on a video game with the same name, The Mortuary Assistant. If you missed it in the theater, keep an eye out for it on Shudder.

This Mortuary Assistant was directed by Jeremiah Kipp from a screenplay by Tracee Beebe and Brian Clarke and it is well done. From the attention to detail, the coloring and composition…I’m surprised it was so easy to follow. I’m not a gamer and didn’t even know The Mortuary Assistant game existed but just based on the music, it’s placement, the disembodied voices and the activity of the monsters/corpses, I knew it had to be based on a game.

Expect this film to be a little graphic and gory, while there are some truly grotesque moments, this is not gore porn. This also has some unique storytelling devices that I really appreciated. The intertwining of Rebecca’s past story/heart break and her current nightmare is excellent! Also, from what I can tell, most, if not all, of the FX are physical. If you like possession horror, psychological horror…you might like this.