Psycho's Movie Reviews #202: The Mortuary Collection (2019)

The Mortuary Collection is a 2019 American anthology horror film written and directed by Ryan Spindell. It stars Clancy Brown, Caitlin Custer, Christine Kilmer, Jacob Elordi, Barak Hardley, Sarah Hay and Mike C. Nelson.

It had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2019.

Plot

Frame Story, Part 1

In the small island town of Raven's End in the 1980s, mortician Montgomery Dark manages the Raven's End Mortuary. One day, a young woman named Sam comes to respond to the Help Wanted sign outside. When he agrees to give her an interview, he takes her on a tour of the facility, during which Sam shows curiosity about a small child-sized coffin which Montgomery has recently performed a funeral for. Montgomery agrees to tell Sam a series of stories about those that have died in Raven's End.

Segment 1: The Cabinet

In the 1950s, a young woman named Emma goes to the restroom during a party to check on the wallets she's pickpocketed while attending. However, the bathroom medicine cabinet piques her curiosity, and she tries to open it but is unable to. When she pries it open, she finds a tentacled monster inside, and is killed by it. The monster drags Emma’s lifeless body into the cabinet and shuts it.

Segment 2: Unprotected

In the 1960s, frat boy Jake passes out condoms on campus, preaching the value of sexual liberation as an excuse to get girls to come to frat parties and sleep with the members of his fraternity. However, upon making a connection with a woman named Sandra at a party, he secretly removes his condom while having sex with her. The next morning, he finds himself with a rash and goes to the campus doctor, Dr. Harold Kubler, for help. Jake discovers to his horror that he has a creature growing inside his stomach. He attempts to meet with Sandra but is caught in a surprise celebration by his fraternity buddies for sleeping with 67 women. They let him go when his water breaks and covers the group with discolored ooze.

At Sandra's house, Jake is laid down on a table by Sandra's parents to help him birth his baby. Sandra is angered when Jake admits that he took his condom off, resulting in his anomalous pregnancy. She makes a phone call to another man, saying she is now free to go on a date with him, and callously leaves Jake with her parents. When Jake asks how they will get the baby out, Sandra's mother tells him that the only way the baby can come out is the same way it got in. As the baby is forcing its way out, Jake's penis explodes, ripping open his abdomen, killing him. Sandra's mother takes the monstrous baby upstairs and lays it in a crib in a room full of other monstrous children.

Segment 3: Till Death

In the 1970s, Wendell Owens is depressed and devoted to taking care of his catatonic wife Carol. Forced to plan his life around her, he responds positively to his doctor, Dr. Kubler's, suggestion that he "accidentally" overdose Carol on painkillers. However, when he tries to give them to her, she grabs his arm, then chokes on the food the pills are hidden in, forcing him to help her throw them up. When she collapses afterward, she impales her head on a statue and dies.

Wendell calls Dr. Kubler for help, but is only told to get rid of the body. He dismembers the corpse amid hallucinations of it being alive again, then packs it into a trunk and takes it to his apartment building elevator. On his way down, the elevator gets stuck and Wendell's neighbor calls the police as he hallucinates blood leaking from the trunk. The elevator seems to start again and go infinitely down as Carol's body rises from the trunk in the form of a horrific ghoul and forces Wendell into a kiss. When the police arrive, they find Wendell on the floor of the elevator, repeating his wedding vows over and over with the corpse still in the box.

Frame Story, Part 2

Sam complains that Montgomery's stories, however true they may be, are too predictable and follow a theme of people being punished for their sins. Montgomery leads Sam down to the mortuary subbasement and prepares to cremate the child-size coffin; Sam stops him and tells him she's not here for a job - she's here for the dead child. She tells him her own story.

Segment 4: The Babysitter Murders

One evening, Sam babysits for a child named Logan Kubler. She watches a horror movie as she cooks dinner but misses a news bulletin about an escaped patient from the local asylum. She then finds a strange man with a head wound in the house; not sure how he got in, Sam is uncertain about how to react until the phone rings and she hears an answering machine message about the escaped killer. This prompts her and the strange man to fight, the man charging upstairs to try to find Logan. After a series of encounters, the man tries to strangle Sam but she stops him by telling him he isn't a killer. She then throws the man down the stairs and drops a TV on his head, crushing it.

When Logan's parents - Dr. Kubler and his wife Debra - come home, they find the dead man and recognize him as the real Sam as the broken television reveals that the woman claiming to be Sam is in fact a child murderer called the Tooth Fairy Killer who cannibalizes children and takes their deciduous teeth as trinkets, and her real name is Charlotte Gibbons. They soon find Logan's remains charred in the oven and scream in horror.

Frame Story, Part 3

As Charlotte finishes her story, she uses her buck knife and takes a tooth from Logan's remains, not having had the chance to do so when she killed him. She then stabs Montgomery in the stomach; however, Montgomery - who appears to bleed embalming fluid - simply laughs, telling her that the job is now hers. Charlotte attempts to escape the mortuary but finds herself unable to do so via a supernatural force that sends her back into the mortuary entrance. Montgomery corners her in the library and explains that he was never able to leave either, and her story is "only just beginning", as certain books fall from the shelves. The charred spirits of her child victims crawl out of the fallen library books and tear Charlotte apart.

Montgomery sews Charlotte's body back together and replaces her blood with embalming fluid. Finally he finds himself able to leave the mortuary for the first time after several decades. However, after a moment in sunlight, he explodes into dust. Her body reanimates inside the mortuary and a final scene shows that Charlotte has now become the new mortician, as she tells a boy named Bill, who was earlier seen delivering newspapers, that she is about to start “making dinner.”

Production

Spindell's 22-minute short film The Babysitter Murders (released in 2015) was featured in The Mortuary Collection, as one of the segments.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2019.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 66 critic reviews with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critics consensus reads "The rare anthology that maintains a consistently high level of quality, The Mortuary Collection is a must-see undertaking for horror fans."

Budget ???

Box Office $307,160

My Review

For this movie, I heard about it around Halloween and it was one that I was intrigued to check out. I knew this movie was an anthology, which when done right I'm usually a fan of. I also got the chance to hear an interview of the writer/director Ryan Spindell on a podcast. Hearing how passionate he was for this project, it really made me want to see it as well. Most everyone was pretty high on this as well which boded well for me. The synopsis here is an eccentric mortician recounts several macabre and phantasmagorical tales that he's encountered in his distinguished career.

We start this off following a paperboy as he makes his way through Raven's End. His name is Bill (Tristan Byon) and we get a taste of the town as he rides through. His journey takes him to the Raven's End Mortuary that is located in the woods. There are a bunch of papers so Bill decides to go up to the door. He gets scared off by the mortician who runs the place, Montgomery Dark (Clancy Brown). Bill drops his camera and Montgomery keeps it when he leaves.

He then presides over a funeral for a child and there's something that he says that throws off those in attendance to the point where many of them cannot look at him as they leave. He thinks that everyone is gone when he discovers Sam (Caitlin Custer) in the showing room. Montgomery asks if she is there showing her respects, but she reveals she is answering the ad for a job. He takes her into the office and she inquires about all of the books. This causes Montgomery to tell her that they all contain the stories of how and why all those that comes through the doors end up there. Sam wants him to tell her a story, which he is reluctant to do, but gives in.

This is where the movie starts to break into the 4 stories of this anthology with the wraparound Montgomery showing her around. The first tale is Emma (Christine Kilmer) going into the bathroom. There's a knock at the door and she tells the guy that she's meet up with him in 10 minutes. She notices a weird slime on the light switch. We see that she's someone who is up to no good and there's something quite odd in this bathroom with her.

The story after this involves a fraternity where Jake (Jacob Elordi) has quite a lot of success with the ladies. Things all change when he meets Sandra (Ema Horvath). They go to hook up and she wants him to wear a condom. When he doesn't, he gets a horrible surprise as the tables are turned.

Then we go to a story of a newly married couple of Carol (Sarah Hay) and Wendell (Barak Hardley). Things went south pretty fast. Carol is in a comatose state and Wendell is struggling to not only take care of her, but to also pay all the bills for her treatments. That is until Dr. Harold Kubler (Mike C. Nelson) offers an alternative.

For the final story, Sam takes the reins as it turns out she did know the little boy's who funeral just happened. She tells the tale of what happened the night he passed away and the riot that was on a newspaper headline at the local mental hospital as well. Things aren't necessarily as we seem there as Montgomery is impressed with her story telling ability.

Now that's where I'm going to leave my recap of the movie as that gets you up to speed with everything with it. I will say I really liked what this movie was doing here. For me, I prefer to have my anthology films to have a wraparound and this one feels lot like Tales from the Hood. What I mean there as that we're in a mortuary, the tales are mostly being told by our mortician and then the final tale involves our character much like that one did. That is really not a bad thing at all. I'm a fan of Tales from the Hood so taking a page out of that book while doing something works for me. We also are learning the tales of people that have come to this mortuary for their final resting place.

This is one in the vein of Tales or like Creepshow where all of the shorts are written by the same person and directed with one vision for them as well. In the case here, Spindell did both of them so that works well for a singular vision. These stories feel a lot like you'd get in the old EC Comics where they're cautionary tale. This movie is smart though that it has come out well after them where Sam calls out Montgomery for them. The first story is quite short compared to the others and Sam states she wants more. It is fine, but nothing special. As the others go on, I like the Meta approach where it is someone doing a bad deed and them being punished for it. It works well for the final one for sure.

The last thing I'll say here is that we get a nice combination of stories. We get a bit of cosmic horror, which is a sub-genre I've been really getting into more of lately and I liked seeing it. There's also a bit of creature feature here and social commentary through flipping gender roles. I also like what they do with the couple and how wild things end up there. It also goes a bit supernatural that I can appreciate. The final story and how it ties in with the wraparound really just completed the movie for me. What I haven't said is that I believe this movie takes place in the 1950's or the early 60's. It still has a timeless feel as they don't shove it down your throat.

Where I want to go next would be the acting. I love that Brown is taking on Montgomery here and being our story teller. He has such a great screen presence and how he plays this role is perfect. This is a character I wouldn't be mad to see again and have another movie with him. Custer was really good as well. Her character change by the end worked for me. She also calls out Montgomery and she brings some sass to the role. She pulls out the Meta aspects on top of it. Aside from this, I think that the rest of the acting is well done. Being that it is shorts, the writing helps to establish the characters and their performances convey what they need in the short time given for me.

The last thing that I really want to go over would be effects. The practical ones that we get look good. There isn't a lot of gore, but we do get a fair amount of blood. There are also some creature effects that are done here as well. What doesn't necessarily hold up for me is the CGI. There is some green screen that I noticed and didn't look great. There is a bit I think used here and there throughout the movie. This didn't look as bad, but I'm still not fan when I noticed it.

So now with that said this movie was really a pleasant surprise. Something I led off saying was that when anthologies are done right, I'm on board. I liked the 4 stories that we got and how the wraparound factored in there in the end. The acting really helps to bring it to life. The practical effects were good and the CGI doesn't necessarily work for me. It doesn't necessarily ruin it though either. I would also say that the sound design and soundtrack worked as well. We get a nice mix here and I thought this movie was a really good movie that is bordering again on being great. 9.7/10