The Mortuary Collection Review: A Macabre Collection of Short Tales Dripping With Style and Blood

Release date: October 8, 2020
Running time: 95 minutes
Starring Clancy Brown, Caitlin Custer, Christine Kilmer, Jacob Elordi, Ema Horvath, Barak Hardley, Sarah Hay
Directed by Ryan Spindell

On the cusp of retirement Montgomery Dark (Brown), an eccentric mortician recounts several of the strangest stories he's encountered in his long career.  However, when the stories start to get weirder and more personal, he realizes that this night might be more than he bargained for.  

The Mortuary Collection has an overarching story with Montgomery Dark and Sam (Custer), a potential apprentice.  He recounts to her some of the strangest stories he has heard and they are very odd.  I loved Brown as Montgomery Dark, as he had a quiet confidence to him that was perfect.  It reminded me a lot of his portrayal of Brother Justin from Carnivale, except less serious.  Custer is likewise great as Sam, though her role is more muted but does get larger as the film continues.  Her reactions to the stories are fun to see and the youth versus age dynamic is fun to watch.  

One of the first things that you will notice about The Mortuary Collection is the film's amazing sense of style.  It has these really bold colors paired with deliberate camera work that make the film really pop off screen.  The stories feel like they are picked from some old time penny comics and they have the colors and look to back that up.  And the look isn't the only thing that makes these feel like visualizations of penny comics.  The stories themselves feel like something out of a magazine, with some horrible consequences from bad choices teaching lessons while causing mayhem.  They are entertaining, stressful, and thoroughly enjoyable horror bites.  And they allow you to see a variety of horror stories in a relatively short sitting, allowing you to meet some quirky characters and see a compact horror predicament quickly.  And it showcases some really phenomenal actors in quick succession.  I really liked each story, though I will tip my hat to the one with Jacob Elordi.  He is such a phenomenal actor and his story easily was the best of the bunch for me.  The Mortuary Collection also thankfully only utilizes CG in one part.  And although that did make the scene look ridiculous it was thankfully a minimal use of it.   And the overall story between Montgomery and Sam is a nice constant and leads to a proper horror conclusion after the tales are told. 

The Mortuary Collection teaches some macabre lessons while telling some wonderful short horror tales that are dripping with both blood and style. 

Watch it.

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The Mortuary Collection is available to stream on Shudder starting October 15, 2020.