Willa Holland Resurrects The Mortuary Assistant, But Can She Bury Its Biggest Sins?

Alright, so here comes The Mortuary Assistant movie, diving straight into the ‘supernatural intern’ horror niche that, honestly, nobody knew they wanted. If the game had you both freaked out and weirdly invested, this adaptation might hit the mark. For anyone else walking in cold, though, consider your expectations efficiently lowered.

A Rough Night at the Morgue

We open with all the right gross-out ambiance: you know, oozing, squelching mortuary noises, the classic horror starter pack. Dr. Raymond Delver (Paul Sparks) is the head mortician, and he’s got a new assistant, Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland, who you’ll recognize if you’ve watched basically any teen drama from the last decade). She’s just nailed her first embalming on a thoroughly disgusting corpse. Raymond is creepily intense, the lighting is already going full 'creepy hospital basement,' and—shocker—the electricity is twitchy.

Raymond drops a rule: Rebecca can only work days, and the basement is a hard no-go. That’s the kind of warning you can practically hear the horror soundtrack swelling behind.

Haunted Past, Haunted Present

Turns out, Rebecca’s got some issues. We jump to her at a support group for people in recovery, picking up her one-year sobriety chip from her counselor Kelly (Keena Ferguson). Cue an immediate sense of dread: just in case surviving your own life wasn’t enough, there’s a ghoulish spectator stalking her from the shadows. Back at home, more troubling details—a few household objects with weird symbols, the general feel of someone watching.

Then Raymond calls her back in for a late-night shift, because what could possibly go wrong with a rookie alone during a nasty storm, surrounded by corpses that now feature suspiciously demonic claw marks. The power flickers out; red eyes stare at her in the darkness. You get the idea.

Where the Movie Trips Up

Here’s where the adaptation runs into trouble. The film tries to build up its backstory—Rebecca’s not just fighting evil spirits, there’s a whole traumatic childhood memory driving things. The problem? Every time the movie feels like it’s about to break loose, we zigzag into yet another flashback, dragging the suspense flat. Horror works best when the tension doesn’t have time to exhale, but this script keeps pumping the brakes right as stuff gets interesting.

Eventually, things pick up. Rebecca starts digging into the broader evil at work, how Raymond might be mixed up in it, and the usual battle-of-wits with supernatural nastiness. The original game milked this ‘investigate and survive’ formula for all it was worth, with branching outcomes depending on your choices. Here, Rebecca’s path feels less like a mystery and more like she’s just picking up clues someone left in her locker. She rarely stumbles, barely questions—she’s essentially got the answers on speed dial.

'She’s essentially handed every answer without believably investigating. There’s never a point where she makes a critical mistake or experiences a realistic setback.'

Adaptation and Editing Woes

On paper, this should have worked. Game creator Brian Clarke co-wrote the screenplay (with Tracee Beebe, mostly known for horror shorts) and clearly wanted to be faithful to fans. They try to give Rebecca more depth and drama, but that ambition comes with script holes you could drive a hearse through. Director Jeremiah Kipp, whose horror resume is solidly indie, doesn’t totally stick the landing in the editing room, either. The movie has the bones of something scary, but jumps around so much it loses steam precisely where it should crank things up.

Still, the Mortuary Itself? Creeptastic.

Let’s not ignore the positives. The mortuary setting is genuinely chilling—lots of gray, sterile metal, and lighting that makes all the dead skin pop (not literally, thankfully). Practical effects do most of the work when it comes to the nastier details, and the whole place is soaked in atmosphere. The sound design is disgustingly perfect; I’m almost positive the embalming sequences will make your skin crawl whether you’re into horror or not. Director Kipp absolutely gets how to create a space that feels claustrophobic and foreboding. Credit where it’s due.

Willa Holland Carries the Weight

Holland, by the way, is doing her level best. If you know her from 'Arrow' or 'Gossip Girl' or 'The Flash,' she brings all the vulnerability and bravado you’d expect, making Rebecca feel like an actual person in a nightmare scenario. She’s the reason any of this works at all. The religious demonology side? The less said, the better—whatever richness the game had mostly gets lost in translation.

• Directed by: Jeremiah Kipp
• Written by: Brian Clarke & Tracee Beebe
• Rebecca Owens: Willa Holland
• Raymond Delver: Paul Sparks
• Kelly: Keena Ferguson
• Streaming: Shudder from March 26th

The Bottom Line

The Mortuary Assistant has a pretty specific audience: gamers who already loved the jump scares and puzzle-heavy misery of the original. For everyone else, it’s a technically stylish but patchy horror flick that never figures out how to make the story’s nastiest secrets actually work on screen. Feels like a missed opportunity, but if you want a reminder of why mortuaries are nightmare fuel, you could do worse.