A creepy mortician tells several tales of macabre deaths,
each with a veiled life lesson about the consequences of sin. HORROR
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The Mortuary Collection (2019)Written and Directed by Ryan Spindell
Starring Clancy Brown, Caitlin Custer, Jacob Elordi, Ema Horvath, Mike C. Nelson, Barak Hardley, Sarah Hay, Ben Hethcoat |
Anthology horror films are always at least mildly entertaining, but there's always at least one segment that doesn't click. I don't think it's a hot take to say that the best to ever do it was Creepshow, and the bar was set insanely high. But The Mortuary Collection comes pretty damn close. It's a film I'd not heard about until a friend recommended it, and it's definitely a wacky movie that has fun with the anthology formula. Led by a rare lead performance from character actor extraordinaire Clancy Brown, this film features four separate stories inside the larger frame story, and there really isn't a weak link among them.
Brown is a creepy old mortician named Montgomery Dark, who resides in the town of Raven's End. One day, a girl named Sam (Custer) arrives looking for work and the two begin exchanging horror stories. The first is about a woman in the 50's who pickpockets and gets dragged into a medicine cabinet by a tentacle monster. It's only about five minutes long and just exists to set the tone. The next, called "Unprotected" follows a frat dick who does the deed without protection and somehow wakes up pregnant. This one was my favorite, thanks to the creepy implications, the comedic tone, and the goddamn exploding dick that I honestly should've seen coming. That's followed by "Till Death," which sees a depressed man decide to end his catatonic wife's suffering, then spiral down a nightmare of guilt. The final story, "The Babysitter Murders," is Sam's story of why she ended up at the mortuary, and the rug is swept out from under you in the best way. Seriously dark territory that few horror films will dare to tread. Our finale sees the true function of the Raven's End mortuary revealed, and while it's not exactly new ground, it's far from boring and caps off a delightfully macabre bunch of scary stories. It's a Shudder Original, so get to subscribing the most underrated streaming service of the bunch. There's so many gems to unearth. |