The Mortuary Collection

The Mortuary Collection (2019)

Runtime: 111 long minutes

Directed by: Ryan Spindell

Starring: Clancy Brown, Caitlin Custer, Ema Horvath, Jacob Elordi, Barak Hardley, Sarah Hay

From: Trapdoor Pictures/Glass Eyes Pix

Where I carp about both the Shudder smart TV app & 21st century horror anthologies.

First, I wish the Shudder app would start working properly again on my Roku TV. For the past few days, only the three streaming channels could be accessed-the movies tab and my queue of films never actually load. I realize it’s a first world problem when everything works on the browser so I have to use it on the computer, but it’s the principle of that not functioning properly.

Secondly, I’ve watched all the V/H/S films and thought all of them were quite bad (the new one about to come out, that will be avoided for the rest of time), Southbound was trash and let’s not even get started on the totally puerile tone-deaf Chillerama. Maybe one day I’ll FINALLY see a second one I dig; all the rave reviews for The Mortuary Collection (which I had to watch on the computer; horrors!) made me think that it was possible this would not get a low rating.

Unfortunately, I have to do just that. It started off fine-enough: whimsical yet still dark music you’d almost expect in an early Tim Burton production, a kid riding his bike in a bucolic little seaside town during the ‘80’s-it was filmed in Astoria, Oregon… a town I best know from The Goonies-the sleepy little hamlet being named Raven’s End, Clancy Brown as a mortician—it all seemed promising, even if Brown’s character name “Montgomery Dark” was a sign of how unsubtle the movie was. Then a smug teen girl named Sam walks in, looking for a job… it all falls apart. I hated Sam and I don’t know if that was the intention right off the bat! He tells her various stories of past deaths, and… she makes meta comments on how she doesn’t like the stories?! Good Lord…

Then again, I didn’t like most of the stories either! If that wasn’t bad enough, things become too convoluted and it just gave me a headache with how preposterous it was, not to mention yawn-inducing. Where are the simple anthologies of the past from the likes of Amicus, which have basic setups and many of the stories are evil people being punished, but who cares if it’s “cliché” if it is entertaining in a macabre way? Presumably many will disagree yet I can’t lie to myself and proclaim that I like the modern stuff more than those basic anthologies that typically are ghoulishly a delight.

It looking quite good for a low budget and Brown’s presence wasn’t enough when there were such fundamental problems as its overall smug attitude, all the humor that was both bad & unnecessary, & me having no idea if one of the stories was just supposed to be set in the 60’s or not! They had “60’s music” and various visual cues yet the dialogue belies this often…. Believe it or not, one line of dialogue mentions “the 21st century” in a way to suggest it was current. Maybe I should just stop with these modern anthologies <shrugs shoulders>