A nervous young woman is working with dead bodies alone on a stormy night. Yep, it's a horror movie, it's 2026's The Mortuary Assistant. It's clearly a low budget movie and the whole thing was clearly shot on cheaply dressed soundstages. The first part of the movie didn't impress me but by the end I was kind of liking it.
Based on a video game I've never played, the movie stars Willa Holland as Rebecca, the titular mortuary assistant. Her employer is Raymond, apparently the only other person working at the mortuary, played by Paul Sparks who seems to be doing a low key Jeffrey Combs impression. He speaks with feverish but steady authority and assures Rebecca she's ready for her first night alone in the place.
At key moments of dialogue, lightning flashes outside. It's that kind of atmosphere, like you might expect the Cryptkeeper to pop up at any moment. We get a lot of shots of corpses opening their eyes or grinning when Rebecca's back is turned. So we're distanced from Rebecca's point of view which contributes to a self-aware, schlocky horror movie vibe. For some reason, too, not a single one of the film's jump scares works.
The movie didn't start to get me until it became clear that a lot of what we're seeing is entirely in Rebecca's head. How much of it is due to Rebecca's own mental health issues or due to a demon is not clear. This has led some reviewers to call the movie "muddled" but I like this kind of thing. This movie isn't as good as Lost Highway but it's in that ballpark.
The Mortuary Assistant is available on Shudder.
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