The Mortuary Collection

I have watched SO many absolutely awful horror movies on Amazon Prime and Netflix that I was anticipating "The Mortuary Collection" to be another cheesy stinker with enough plot holes to drive a Polaris submarine through. I have rarely been so delighted to be wrong.

I've always liked Clancy Brown, and he plays the mortician character, Montgomery Dsrk, with an affable, quirky aplomb. Caitlin Custer absolutely nails it with her performance as a young woman who has supposedly come to apply for a job opening for mortuary assistant.

If you enjoyed the old HBO "Tales from the Crypt" series... which I did... you will very likely enjoy "The Mortuary Collection". It isn't perfect, but it is well worth a watch.

The stories in this collection are quite good and enjoyable. The atmosphere created adds the charm. It's really enjoyable horror anthology. And the way it is ended is nice finish.A good treat for horror fans.

Ok in an effort to keep this short as possible I had a longer review pointing out that this film has pretty much been done before. I mean c'mon how many set-ups can you use for an anthology horror movie before you need to rehash older themes. How many times has the funeral director/ crypt-keeper/ grave-digger/ pathologist/ mad-scientist ect. telling horror stories thing been done? Countless, right?

But, one thing those others didn't necessarily have was.... Clancy Brown, if the name doesn't ring a bell think of the hardest screw in Shawshank. Yeah, that Clancy Brown. And he is fantastic as a very low-key yet perfectly gnarly old funeral director.

So, does having one of the arguably finest character actors of our time (maybe even all time) save this movie from the horror movie scrap-heap? No it does not. In fact, it didn't need saving, yeah Clancy Brown is as always great in this but, he's just the cherry on top of this pretty damn good little collection of horror stories. Admittedly there's nothing particularly new here but.... So flipping what!! Its a fun horror movie. There's some twists, jumps, laughs and more than enough blood and gore to satisfy even the more jaded horror fans out there.

Looking for new blood to add to this years creepy crawly movie binge? The Mortuary Collection is one of the better new offerings for Halloween 2020

But sadly the interwoven stories are a bit lame and unconnected,

I was hoping for once to have some stories to rival the old Hammer House Of Horror or Peter Cushing Tales From The Crypt and the many other great spine tingling movies from yesteryear but sadly not - How is it not possible 50 years on that we do not have the ability to create great stories like for instance one of the most frightening I ever saw "The Ghouls" and which would make a great movie on its own and who can forget the "Shadmock" story which was part of the movie The Monster Club which remains my favourite of the 70's horror movies!

Overall though it is a visual feast and Clancy Brown shows that he still has pulling power with an effortless performance but sadly apart from some gratuitous gore there are zero scares or even a smidgin' of fear so I give it an average 6 hatchets out of 10!

Horror anthology that is decent in its presentation but pulls more for a black humor element. Nothing too frightening, but it does have its moments of moderate bloody moments. Somewhat standard setting to tell the tales. Enjoyable but nothing new or spectacular.