The Mortuary Assistant — The Mortuary Assistant ( Blu Ray)
2026’s The Mortuary Assistant blends & blurs several sub-genres of horror to create a grimly heady and macabrely unpredictable ride. It focuses on a newly trained mortuary assistant's first night working solo. The film mixes creepy & lightning-striking gothic unease, are-they-going-crazy-or-not psycho thriller, occultic mystery, and demented demonic horror- which at points get quite action bound/ tense. Here from Acorn Media International is a Blu-ray release of the film.
The Mortuary Assistant was directed by New York based Jeremiah Kipp. Since the early 2000s, he’s amassed an impressive sixty-five credits- five of which are features, and the rest are shorts/ one TV movie. So, his other four features to date are drama Love & Everything in Between (2017), sci-fi horror Black Wake (2018), erotic vampire horror Theresa & Allison (2019), and folk horror Slapface (2021).
The film is based on a 2022 horror video game of the same name- I’ve never played the game, but on the whole, I must say it’s one of the more watchable video game adaptations I’ve seen. As it both manages to stand on its own and is largely compelling/intriguing throughout.
It opens introducing our two leads- thirtysomething mortuary science graduate Rebecca (Willa Holland), and her fiftyish boss Raymond (Paul Sparks). We see Rebecca doing her first solo embalming- moving from wiring up the body's mouth, draining its fluids, then replacing them with embalming fluid.
It all goes well/ as it should do, so the rather stern/ slightly creepy Raymond officially welcomes her to the mortuary practice. He says that she’ll now be processing all of the bodies- though these will all be in the daytime…he’ll be dealing with nighttime admissions..
After this, we see Rebecca going to a support group- to find out she is one year sober, and her African American sponsor Kelly (Keena Ferguson Frasier) is very proud of her. She gets back in her car after the meeting to receive a call from Raymond…she has to go back into work, as a lot of bodies have come in and need to be processed.
She gets back and starts her work…but a few things seem off- firstly, Raymond has insisted that the bodies have to be embalmed, then directly cremated. Next, each of the bodies has strange markings and cuts on them, and lastly, she can’t be sure- but she thinks some of them are moving.
Both leads are excellent- Holland goes from nervous & proud, work-focused, curious/ creeped out, onto being an emotional wreck. Sparks plays his cards close to his chest- shifting between seemingly trustworthy and creepy/unsure of his motives.
The sets/ location looks great- especially the mortuary building itself, going from its large, grand pillared front. Into its dull/ flickering light wood floor corridors. Onto the checkerboard processing rooms, the cold/ grim steel body storage room, and the cremator.
The film effectively blends creepy & uneasy atmospherics, moments of gnarly gore, demented demonic interaction, with moments of action & chase. The whole thing has a very unpredictable flow, and the deeper you get in, the more you can’t really define were reality/ non-reality start & begins.
The only extra on the disc is a six minutes behind-the-scenes/ making-of. This features interviews with cast members, the director and a few producers/ crew members. It’s an interesting enough featurette.
All in all, The Mortuary Assistant is one of the more impressive modern horror films I've seen of late- it blends its horror sub-genres well, it’s well produced/ acted, and remains engaging throughout. I wanted to give this a three and a half, but as we don’t do halves, I’ll go for a three.