31 Days of Halloween: The Mortuary Collection

 2019, Ryan Spindell (a bunch of shorts) -- download

Of note, we missed a couple of nights, as we binge-rewatched The Mandalorian. Meh, its not like there are rules.

Because Clancy Brown.

The Mortuary Collection is a pseudo anthology horror movie, taking the same theme as Scare Me by having two characters tell each other stories. High on the hill above the who-knows-when (they say the 80s, but it felt... older) town is the Raven's End Mortuary. The opening setup of this movie is downright beautiful, great camera work and colours and CGI, creating quite the mystical spot. A young lady named Sam shows up at the door of the mortuary to take mortician Montgomery Dark up on the "help wanted" sign. He's typically creepy, more well-embalmed zombie than man, all massive Clancy Brown intimidation factor. He believes that mortuaries are more about the stories of the people who go through their doors, than the deaths themselves. And to vet Sam, he puts her through a story telling game.

The stories are cute, period set pieces, weird and fun. A young woman gets eaten by a Cthulhu-ian octopus in the medicine cabinet, a frat boy gets pregnant (yes, he gets pregnant) after refusing to wear a condom, a man dedicated to taking care of his comatose wife utterly fails in trying to get rid of her, and finally, Sam's tale herself, about the kid she was babysitting, who happens to be Montgomery's latest "client". Each story has its gore, its jumps, lots of bloody practical effects and tongue in cheek interactions. Nothing was all that novel, again just being the kinds of stories that emerged from horror comic books in the 70s but everything was well done and easily digested.

**spoilers though I doubt you care**

At the end, during the final story, we get Sam's real story, which I have to give it to the movie, I didn't see coming. Her tale of being the babysitter protecting the child upstairs, from the psycho that escaped from the local asylum is all misdirection. She is the psycho, the dead man on the floor was the babysitter, and Sam has come to the mortuary just to get her souvenir. Alas, the ending is as expected, as she tries to kill Dark, only to learn he is indeed a zombie, the forever mortician, and she has convinced him -- she gets the job, as the new mortician. He is free, to finally leave, to go outside and get his rewards for all the years of servitude.  Well, he's be running the place for a LONG time and therefore, his reward is POOF dusted. The end.

So all in all a fun romp, well done, but not entirely original.