‘The Mortuary Assistant’ Review: Does It Live Up to the Game?

Video games don’t work as movies. For decades, fans of both mediums have been questioning why their favorite titles don’t translate well to the big screen. Is it because of fidelity? The lack thereof? No, not really. At their core, video games are interactive experiences. Gameplay, and the subsequent immersion, are key to their success, especially when it comes to horror games. Participation augments the scares, and when an audience is reduced to passive observers, you might reasonably wonder what was so scary in the first place. Painful as it is to concede, Jeremiah Kipp’s The Mortuary Assistant, adapted from the acclaimed game of the same name, isn’t going to change many minds.

It had been years since I played the game, though I could still viscerally recall the jumps and jolts. In the game, players assume control of Rebecca Owens, a new worker at the River Fields Mortuary. One evening, she discovers the presence of a demonic entity in the mortuary, and after it attaches itself to her, she must endeavor to save her soul before the sun rises. Resultantly, players are tasked with some procedural gameplay and icky mortuary stuff. Three bodies need to be embalmed, and the demon’s name must be learned before the sun rises.

It’s meant to be played on repeat, with each shift adding new scares and scenarios. It’s claustrophobic, austere, and scream-out-loud-scary. As a movie, it’s just repetitious, barely better than last year’s Until Dawn. Heaps of fun to play, considerably less fun to watch. opts for fidelity, often to its detriment. It’s a barrage of easter eggs and iconography that fans of the game will know (not unlike ), though the winks come at the expense of genuine terror.