The Mortuary Assistant (2026) - Movie Review

If you think the poster is mid, wait till you watch the movie.

What I told you that Shudder had put out an adaptation of a popular indie horror game?

What if I told you they were able to perfectly recreate multiple locations and scenes shot for shot in the film, being faithful to the game’s aesthetic?

What if I told you that’s where the good news ended?

Let’s discuss.

The Mortuary Assistant is a horror adaptation of the immensely popular video game, brought to us by director Jeremiah Kipp and writers Tracee Beebe and Brian Clarke. While Clarke is probably the most notable of the trio as one of the game creators, however Kipp and Beebe have been acting in the horror and short film communities, but I haven’t seen any of their work prior to this.

The film focuses on Rebecca, a recovering addict with a dark past who’s just gotten her big break. Having recently graduated from a Mortuary Science program, she’s hired on to River Fields Mortuary to start immediately. It’s a night gig, but it’s a foot in the door so Rebecca leaps at the chance. Unfortunately, the mortuary holds many secrets, as does its owner, Raymond. Rebecca shakes off the odd feelings the property gives her and tries to keep her head down, but strange things start happening. Her gear seems to move on its own when she’s not looking, creepy faces peer into windows, and demonic voices call her name. Worse yet, the shadows know her name. Will Rebecca figure out the mystery of the mortuary before sunrise, or will she end up another body in the cooler. Find out in tonight’s feature, The Mortuary Assistant.

If you liked the video game, you will not enjoy this movie.

Which sounds like a no brainer when discussing a video game adaptation, but this one is so much worse. Most videogame movies hit a wall where their finances can’t provide the special effects to make the ideas work, thus leading to a cheap looking and/ or nonsensical film. But the Mortuary Assistant game isn’t something that needs over the top SFX. It’s a very grounded story that takes place (for the most part) in a single location. The heavy hitting parts of the narrative come from the main character’s inner conflict concerning her past sins which lead to the death of her father—which is revealed throughout the course of the game. His death being revealed to have come at her hands.

However, the filmmakers decided to alter this basic motivation for the character and instead focused on her impending relapse due to the pressures of battling demons. Which is handled with stereotypical scenes of the character sitting in their care on the street where the drug dealers hang out. Oh, and they made her father a villainous character who pops up throughout the film, which has little to no basis in the game.

To add insult to injury, they altered the opening scene which sets up the entire narrative and establishes the protagonist’s internal conflict concerning her role in her father’s death. There is a heartfelt conversation with her grandmother in the diner at the opening of the game. It implies all of the character’s flaws and recovery, etc in a quick, concise method—which the filmmakers should have adapted shot for shot, word for word.

They somehow dumbed the story down while making it even more complicated.

Every change made to the narrative made it worse. It’s unexplainable how tedious and stupid the film comes off to the viewer. And this is coming from a reviewer who didn’t think the game deserved the hype. I found the game to be a tedious with an artificially inflated playtime due to its annoyingly random corpse system and the repetitive, brain rot tasks, but the narrative was intriguing and the world building was highly enjoyable. I also enjoyed a suede realistic display of the day in the life of a Mortician / funeral director.

However, the things I liked about the game are gone. There’s no emotional weight, no mystery, but somehow they maintained the crushing tedium. I mean, I like Willa Holland and she’s a fine enough actor, but she doesn’t do anything in this movie. She stands in a mortuary, staring at bodies, but we rarely see her do anything of the job. She’s kind of like a cardboard standee.

It doesn’t help that the script did her no favors, see above, and there is no chemistry between any of the actors. It doesn’t help that the character of Raymond, who is the lynchpin of the game who drives the events in an ambiguous, “Is he a villain or not” way. The allegiance and intent of his character being the second major conflict to present itself in the game’s narrative. Do you think they even attempted to follow the source material?

Hell no.

Paul Sparks plays the role as a completely unhinged weirdo who is so off the wall, that he’s not even entertaining. Between his flat, cardboard delivery and one facial expression, the film could have been much improved just removing the character entirely. He doesn’t really serve any purpose other than to fill some runtime. Which brings me to another incredibly obvious issue.

The film has a ton of filler for a 91 minute runtime.

Get used to a lot of this.

This film would have been better served as a short, or an episode of Shudder’s Creepshow series. It’s a one trick pony, and that pony isn’t very good.

The monsters are lovingly adapted from the game and look eerie, but aren’t scary. The film lacks any real scares at all. Again, as the main character spends most of the time standing around staring at things, the attempts at Jump scares fall flat and the poor camera angles utilized throughout the film make any creepy event look more like an old episode of Goosebumps, but without the gravitas. It’s so strange to try to look back on my viewing of the film, because it’s all just so forgettable.

Kudos go out to the set dressing and art design team as they made the movie look almost identical to the game.

And it’s always a joy to see John Adams in action.

But skip this one.

Seriously, you’ll thank me.