The Mortuary Assistant review – game-inspired horror simulates morgue work with conviction

While embalming techniques are as lovingly crafted as in the original video game, there’s not enough light to balance out the darkness when things take a demonic turn

This horror movie, based on Brian Clarke’s popular indie video game of the same name, leads with its biggest strength: practical effects. A body is being prepped for cremation by Rebecca (Willa Holland) and Raymond (Paul Sparks), and the various embalming techniques are recreated convincingly – even lovingly. This parallels the game, in which a player can learn more about embalming techniques than is possible from most forms of on-screen entertainment.

It’s this element of simulation – a major part of the game’s appeal – where the film works best, albeit without the original’s interactivity. The Mortuary Assistant succeeds in putting you in the shoes of someone wiring a cadaver’s jaw, injecting chemicals into arteries and removing fluids from various body cavities. Needless to say, the audience for this aspect is perhaps a little more specific than a run of the mill horror movie.

Where a broader audience might be better served is in the areas where the film falls apart. As Rebecca begins a solo nightshift, it quickly becomes clear that various corpses are possessed by demons. This is communicated by techniques similar to those employed in the likes of Insidious or The Conjuring, ghost train movies that involve brightly lit contrasting narratives.

The Mortuary Assistant lacks the light to contrast with the shadows: Rebecca and Raymond are both dark, tormented, oblique characters, occupying dark, tormented, stylised worlds, and there’s very little light to balance it out. After a while, you adjust: what should be scary stops being scary; it’s just the norm for these guys.

It’s a shame, because the film is well directed, the practical effects are aces throughout and it’s certainly an original premise. It would be interesting to see a sequel that either fully commits to complex characterisation of the elevated sort needed to make a gloomy narrative sing, or else goes schlockier and more formulaic, with some cheesy good guys to really feel afraid for.

• The Mortuary Assistant is on Shudder and AMC+ from 27 March.