‘The Mortuary Assistant’: This Valentine’s, You’ve Got a Date with the Dead [Digital Feature]
You could do dinner. Sure. You could do overpriced wine, and pretend to be excited about a crowded restaurant where everyone is performing romance like it’s community theater night. Or. And hear me out on this one…
You could take your Valentine to the mortuary.
This year, Dread and Epic Pictures are offering a different kind of meet-cute experience with The Mortuary Assistant, the feature adaptation of DreadXP’s cult-hit video game created by the legendary Brian Clarke. Yes, that mortuary. And yeah, those bodies. And, okay, sure, something is absolutely watching you both from the hallway.
Romantic? Debatable. Memorable? Absolutely.
For today’s Dread Central Digital Feature, I’m here to spotlight the must-see romance of the season. Between you … and the dead. Check it out below.
The original game earned its reputation the old-fashioned way: by quietly ruining people’s nights. Intimate and 1:1. No cheap perfume or candy. Just fluorescent lighting, procedural embalming, and the creeping suspicion that you are not alone. It became a staple for fans of indie horror, because players couldn’t hide from that sort of tension. You had to finish the job. You had to look at the bodies and listen to the noises in the dark.
Brian Clarke helped write the screenplay, which means the film is no glossy rebrand of a recognizable title. Nuh uh. The mythology, rituals, and the suffocating loneliness of the night shift, it’s all still there, hun. It’s the foundation of the movie.
Steering the whole rotten ship is Jeremiah Kipp, the director behind Slapface, a visionary filmmaker who’s known for braiding emotional beats with terror. Kipp doesn’t seem interested in spooky for spooky’s sake. He’s a master of discomfort, allowing moments to hang around for just a second or two longer than maybe they should. In a story about a young woman alone in a mortuary with a possible demonic presence, those seem like exactly the right instincts.
Like a great chef, under Kipp’s direction, the mortuary isn’t just a backdrop. It’s a date location from hell. Stainless steel tables. Buzzing lights. Long corridors that seem to stretch when you look at them too long. It’s intimate, but in the worst possible way. You are close to the bodies. Close to the rituals. Close to whatever is breathing just out of frame. The perfect place to get to know your special someone.
And here’s the thing that makes this release especially fun: it lands today, the day before Valentine’s Day. While everyone else is lining up for safe awards season prestige or colorful escapism, horror fans get to do something far more special. Love is battlefield, after all.
Think of The Mortuary Assistant as a litmus test. If a new fling doesn’t have their interest piqued by that title, it might be time to cast yourself a wider net. And, if they lean in, smile, pull up their human skin mask and spew bring bright green love bile into your face with joyous excitement… Well, you may have have just found your person.
This is a movie that understands the power of a slow burn. Horror is the ultimate date genre for a reason. You both spot something in the background. You both pretend you didn’t jump. The room goes silent, the lights flicker onscreen, and suddenly you’re hyper aware of the person sitting next to you. It’s adrenaline dressed up as entertainment. What could be sexier.
Choosing horror on Valentine’s is also just more fun. It cuts through the syrupy expectations and replaces them with something alive. You don’t need candlelight. You need a pulse spike. You need a reason to grab a hand when the hallway stretches a little too long. You need a story you’ll actually talk about afterward.
Dinner fades. Dread lingers.
So here’s the pitch. Skip the predictable. Skip the safe. Lean into the void instead. Show up tonight or tomorrow and let a mortuary, a demon, and a very bad night shift to the heavy lifting.
Because honestly, if you’re going to spend Valentine’s in the dark, you might as well make it interesting. This Valentine’s, forget the roses. Have a date with the dead. The Mortuary Assistant is in theaters now. Get your tickets here.
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