Something Wicked Is Brewing In This ‘The Mortuary Assistant’ Clip [Exclusive]
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Epic Pictures and Dread will release The Mortuary Assistant, the big-screen adaptation of the popular video game, in theaters this Friday, February 13th.
Directed by Jeremiah Kipp, The Mortuary Assistant follows newly certified mortician Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland), who accepts a night shift at a mortuary, embalming bodies alone after hours. As disturbing events escalate, Rebecca uncovers demonic rituals, the dark secrets of her enigmatic mentor (Paul Sparks), and her own buried trauma—racing to survive the night before her body becomes a vessel for possession.”
Dread Central has an exclusive clip from the film in which the mortuary lights go out, and Holland’s character goes off in search of light. Meanwhile, the audience catches a small glimpse of the horror that’s about to ensue. It’s a great cliffhanger moment.
“Horror movies allow us to talk about difficult things, but in a safe way,” says Kipp. “I’ve always found the world to be difficult but horror movies to be fun, and in that spirit, here’s a clip of the movie where Rebecca Owens is trying to go about her work, and the lights go out.
“We introduce some of the elements from the game, such as letting strips and sigils, but we also highlight the threat just waiting to spring on Rebecca. The corpse is played by Karen Marie Clark, who had her own medical procedure in the form of a kidney replacement not long before principal photography. Art imitates life, life imitates art. Karen cared about the scene just as much as I did, and those eyes of hers are not a special effect. She did that in her audition, and I immediately said, ‘We have our dead body.’ Karen and I called her Mrs. Brewster, and I was honored that she creeped out the audiences at San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic-Con when we shared this clip.
“I hope you see her in your nightmares.”
More from Kipp on the production of The Mortuary Assistant.
“Having just seen Mark Fischbach’s adaptation of the indie horror game Iron Lung, I was inspired by the passion and integrity he brought to the work. You could absolutely feel his love for the material, and that feels like the key ingredient when directing an adaptation of a video game that so many of our predecessors ignored: you have to care.
“When I met with game creator Brian Clarke and the team at Epic Pictures Group, I let them know right away I wasn’t interested in making ‘a video game adaptation’ – I wanted to make a film based on this specific game.
“I absolutely loved the characters: young mortician Rebecca Owens struggling to live in her work and avoiding the darkness creeping into her life. Raymond Delver, proprietor of River Fields Mortuary, who gradually reveals why he needs Rebecca to take the night shift. The Mimic skulking on the sidelines, Vallery locked away in the basement, Grandma at the window…I wanted to dramatize Brian’s lonely, intensely thought-through world.
“I’ll never forget meeting with the good people at Epic and Shudder, who were equally passionate about telling this story. We were all making the same movie. My favorite part of the meeting was when Sam Zimmerman leaned forward and said, ‘Jeremiah, above all else, you have to make this film scary.”
“I made sure my meetings with every single department head during production and post was led with, ‘Above all else, we have to make this film scary.’
“When I think about what scares me, I’m genuinely not afraid of death. But I’m fascinated by life’s eternal mystery, just like everybody else, and I was comforted by the fact that the morticians I interviewed when doing my research were some of the most empathetic, sensitive and kind people I’ve ever met. They treated their work as if they were caretakers of the deceased, and to treat them with courtesy and respect.
“No, what scares me is pain. And the kind of suffering that doesn’t go away, that has to be faced day in and day out, the pains of addiction, depression, suicidal ideation. The demons in Brian Clarke’s game didn’t just attack, they lurk and fester, they are intrusive voices, they want to paralyze you with fright before attacking your mind like vultures.
“And before that pain is anticipation, and Brian Clarke’s game is so skillful at giving you a task (embalm this corpse) and then at every turn closing in on you, quietly at first, then more brutally later. The demons slowly work their way into you, they know everything about you, and it makes the attacks feel more personal.
“And medical science and death are with us all the time, even within the cast and the crew. The actress playing Grandma (the tremendous Shelly Gibson) lost her daughter a few days before filming her scenes, and she showed up to work saying she wanted to do the scene to honor her child, who was also an actor. Doing that scene was a kind of catharsis for her. The crew was immensely respectful and spontaneously applauded when we wrapped her that day. I think about that a lot, because The Mortuary Assistant is a film about work, and about proximity to death, and about carrying on against the forces of despair that attack our minds and ravage our bodies.”
The Mortuary Assistant was written by Tracee Beebe and Brian Clarke. The film was produced by Patrick Ewald’s Epic Pictures via the Company’s horror division, Dread, Cole Payne’s Traverse Media, and Jacob P. Heineke. Executive producers include Brian Clarke, Katie Page, Yulissa Morales, Randy Sinquefield, Patrick Fischer, and Oliver Garboe.
The Mortuary Assistant will also stream on Shudder beginning March 27.
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