THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT (2026)

3 stars

Acorn Media International. Digital, Blu Ray and DVD. 20th July.

Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland) is an intern at River Fields Mortuary. Overseen by her boss Raymond Delver (Paul Sparks), she is performing an embalming, as a final exam before being taken on at the establishment. We see the details. Like wiring the jaw shut, cutting the body open, pushing tubes in – Not really something you often witness!

‘Fantastic job’, Raymond declares. The body is placed into the freezer cabinet and Rebecca begins the clean up. About to go into the basement for supplies she is startled by her boss, who tells her there is never a reason to go down there. There is someone or something down there, as it is briefly glimpsed. The start of the mystery. What is he hiding?

Now she has successfully passed, she will be mainly working on her own, whilst Delver handles the business. It will be on the day shift – as he doesn’t want her to work the night shift.

We also learn that Rebecca is one year sober. Her grandma is at the meeting to support her and her sponsor Kelly (Keena Ferguson Frasier) tells her to contact her if she feels herself slipping. Which could happen any time soon!

She gets a call to come into work as there are several transfers from the city morgue. Of course there is a storm with the prerequisite lightning and it isn’t long before something weird is going on. The bodies she is dealing exhibit movement – which she doesn’t notice. A phone call: ‘You did this to me’.

She is beginning to be freaked out. Another call. Her dad Ben (filmmaker John Adams) reporting her missing when she was 14. Past trauma bubbling up.

What is going on? Clearly Raymond knows…

He explains that there is an entity – it uses dead bodies but then it can possess a living person. Seems she is kind of screwed. Her very earnest boss tells her what she must do which involves lots of mumbo jumbo and running around looking scared. Whilst it tries to be creepy, with a constant thunderstorm, it doesn’t succeed.

The script is by Tracee Beebe and Brian Clarke, based on the video game Clarke created in 2022 and it is directed with some style by Jeremiah Kipp – it just all feels a touch cliche. No idea if it is a good adaptation of the game. There are some well done icky practical effects. Willa Holland is fine in the lead capturing the fear and anxiety, but is let down by the poor script.

Steve Kirkham