"The Mortuary Collection" a ghoulishly fun horror anthology done right without a weak link

The Mortuary Collection (2020) 

While horror can be a hall of mirrors for the human condition, “The Mortuary Collection” is just good, old-fashioned macabre fun. An Amicus-styled horror anthology from the brain of writer-director Ryan Spindell, the film is a collection of morality tales about no evil deeds going unpunished, all structured through the yarn-spinning of a decrepit mortician. Spindell’s stories all feel of a single, cohesive sensibility with a morbid, Sam Raimi-twisted sense of humor, and it’s actually a positive sign when the wraparound is as solid as the stories within. Never an uneven grab-bag, “The Mortuary Collection” is a ghoulish package that never rests until it’s done delivering the goods for horror fans and just fans of storytelling inside a mortuary.

Mirroring Clarence Williams III’s devilish mortician Mr. Simms from 1995's "Tales from the Hood,” a glorious Clancy Brown is having a grand time as Montgomery Dark, the ancient mortician of a funeral home in the town of Raven’s End. He’s a crypt keeper of sorts, only with skin still barely on his bones, turning into quite the storyteller when a young woman named Sam (Caitlin Fisher) answers the help-wanted sign outside. In showing Sam the mortuary arts and possibly passing the torch, Montgomery proves every corpse tells a story. The first of Montgomery’s “dark, twisted and awesome” tales of terror is just a morsel, in which a pick-pocketing ‘50s housewife (Christine Kilmer) gets her comeuppance by the slimy inhabitants of a medicine cabinet. 

When Sam is rather glib about Montgomery’s predictable opener, the second yarn is a real humdinger, a nutty parable about protection, as in the safety of using a prophylactic. It centers on a smooth-talking fraternity brother (Jacob Elordi) who preaches about every man wrapping his tool but does not practice what he preaches upon meeting a demure yet beautiful young woman (Ema Horvath). The vengeful results are darkly funny and grotesque, and yet there is something weirdly empowering to see gender roles reversed to this extreme. Up next is a grisly, gallows-humored matrimonial tale about Wendell (Barak Hardley) desperately trying to stay devoted to his vows with his sickly, catatonic spouse Carol (Sarah Hay), until they are parted by death. The fourth and final segment is actually Ryan Spindell’s own 2015 short, “The Babysitter Murders”—not unlike how Damien Leone used his “Terrifier” short for one of the stories in the feature-length “All Hallows’ Eve”—and it’s a terrific closer. Without spoiling a thing, it’s a ghastly subversion of a babysitting tale, and it incorporates a trusty meat tenderizer and notably deploys a face-inside-the-TV gore bit to boot.

Atmospheric and inventive on a modest scale, “The Mortuary Scale” is an ode to how fiendishly spooky and perversely sardonic horror can be. Across the board, the quality of the stories is consistent without any weak links, unlike the basic nature of most anthological films. Clancy Brown cannot be improved upon as the host of nightmares, and a colorful cast also helps sell the overall heightened tone with a welcome evocation to Steven Spielberg’s late-‘80s creation of “Amazing Stories,” just cranked up to 100. Bravo to “The Mortuary Collection” for being a horror anthology done right. 

Grade: B

Shudder will release “The Mortuary Collection” (108 min.) for streaming on October 15, 2020.