The Mortuary Assistant

2026

Horror

Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 23% · 34 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 23% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 4.0/10 10 266 266

night shift based on video game mortuary supernatural horror psychological horror

Plot summary

Rebecca Owens, a recent mortuary science graduate takes a night shift job at River Fields Mortuary. Initially, the job seems straightforward — embalming bodies, completing paperwork, and keeping things tidy. But once Rebecca starts working the night shift, things take a dark turn.

Director

Jeremiah Kipp Photo
Jeremiah Kipp

Top cast

Willa Holland Photo
Willa Holland as Rebecca Owens
Paul Sparks Photo
Paul Sparks as Raymond Delver
Emily Bennett Photo
Emily Bennett as Vallery
John Adams Photo
John Adams
720p.WEB
836.36 MB
1280*542
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by 4 / 10

An Elephant in the China Shop of Arthouse Horror

Despite the solid cinematography, lighting, and direction, this claustrophobic psychological horror plays out like a chaotic and incoherent story, creating cognitive dissonance with its disjointed ghosts and demon."The autopsy shows: the film is dead."And this isn't a dig at the filmmakers. I don't consider this movie bad or talentless, unlike, say, the film "Oak, 2025," which I hated for its emptiness and mediocrity. On the surface, the creators were passionate about building a tense atmosphere in a claustrophobic morgue with a demon that torments and drives the heroine insane, hinting at drug addiction. However, the film lacks a single central theme: no coherent demonic possession, no overcoming childhood trauma, no personal tragedy, no struggle with substance addiction."The screenplay structure can be metaphorically compared to plot horses that gallop off in different directions, leaving the film lying in the road."You don't want to finish watching it; it fails to engage. Paradoxically, the film is irritating because of its chaotic plot, assembled from a multitude of formulaic scary events:A corpse twitched... A shadow flickered... A ghost appeared... A demon whispered...This all reads like items on a screenwriting checklist. Except the creators forgot to tie it all together and lead to a coherent resolution. The story breeds distrust and a feeling of being deceived, because they try to showcase the grim, psychological depth of a hallucinogenic morgue, but everything is so convoluted and overstuffed that it comes off not as a clever play with perception, but as scripted, incoherent, otherworldly nonsense. The authors lose control of their intended complexity.The film intrigues but betrays expectations.It was supposed to be a psychological horror exploring the inner world through terror, but it comes across as a forgettable movie devoid of substance and charisma. It uses profound themes as frightening but empty decorations, dressing up a clumsy elephant in a china shop in the costume of arthouse cinema.
Reviewed by 4 / 10

Very Mediocre

This one should have been a slam dunk. Even on the low budget, the setting and the story were quite good. It's too bad the filmmakers relied on horror cheesy clichès throughout and didn't bother to explain a whole lot of what was going on. In the end, I got the jist of it all, but it's still no excuse for the lack of exposition. I understand keeping things a mystery for the sake of the plot, but this was ridiculous. It just throws you into the story about 20 minutes in and never gives it time to breathe and mature until the very end.There were bright spots for the film that I did enjoy though. The lead actress does a pretty good job with the material given, plus she reminds me of Elizabeth Olsen and that works in the films favor, and there are some interesting set pieces that occur throughout. It's just a shame the writing didn't come through as well as it should have.Overall, not the worst video game adaptation. An obscure one to be sure, but the story had a lot going for it to keep me interested. It's just a shame the writing doesn't flow very well and a vast majority of the scary stuff feels very rushed.2 assistants out of 5.
Reviewed by 1 / 10

You can tell this film was just thrown together

The Mortuary Assistant is exactly what you fear when you hear the phrase "video game adaptation." It arrives quietly, almost suspiciously so, with barely a whisper of promotion, which immediately signals a lack of confidence from the studio. When a horror film creeps into theaters without marketing, it usually means one of two things: a hidden gem or a budget-bound gamble. Unfortunately, this leans heavily toward the latter.As an adaptation of The Mortuary Assistant, the film struggles to translate interactive terror into cinematic storytelling. What works in a game, where tension builds through participation and choice, feels flat when stripped of player agency. Instead of immersive dread, we get repetitive back-and-forth scenes that blur together. Conversations feel deceptive in a way that is more confusing than clever. One moment you think the protagonist understands what is happening, the next moment reality shifts again, but without enough clarity to make the twists satisfying.Technically, the film suffers from noticeable issues. The sound design lacks dimension, and horror lives or dies by its audio atmosphere. Silence and sharp cues should feel surgical, yet here they feel muddy and uneven. The cinematography leans heavily into darkness, but not in a purposeful or artful way. The lighting feels less like a creative choice and more like a limitation. There is almost no contrast, no breathing room between shadow and visibility, which makes the visuals monotonous rather than haunting.For viewers unfamiliar with the game, the story becomes even more disorienting. The possession elements are present, and the ritualistic procedures are there, but the rules of this world are not explained clearly enough to ground the audience. Instead of intrigue, there is detachment. Instead of fear, there is fatigue.Ultimately, this is not an unwatchable film, but it is not worth a theater ticket. It feels like a low-budget experiment that never fully commits to elevating its source material. If you are curious, wait until it lands on streaming. Spend your money elsewhere, because this adaptation does little to justify the price of admission.
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