Based on a hit game that I have never played. It’s not the game’s fault, it’s been a good amount of time since I’ve picked up a controller to do anything but pause a movie or switch to a different streaming service. Now doing my late night YouTube rabbit holes, I have come across some gameplay videos but I usually only make it about thirty seconds through those until it’s off to a documentary about Amazonian megafauna, so I really have no basis of knowledge for what this movie is all about. This is just a long-winded way of me saying, I’m coming into this like I would any random horror film I stumble upon. Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland from Arrow) is a newly certified mortician at River Fields Mortuary. Her socially awkward boss, Raymond Delver (the always welcome Paul Sparks), knows that there’s some awful shit brooding inside the building with the basement seemingly the main hub of unsavory activity. Usually, Raymond would tackle all nighttime work with Rebecca focusing on the work during the daylight hours but an emergency brings the newbie into a late hours shift and throws her right into a supernatural nightmare scenario. Confused as to why she has been directed to embalm and then cremate her “charge”, the horrific and fresh injuries on the body are also concerning. But a job is a job and especially this freshly into a job, nobody asks too many questions. Even if the same odd itinerary is assigned to every corpse she is dealing with during her unexpected shift. Rebecca has personal problems as well which the evil is going to be able to manipulate with an endgame of making the young woman a proper vessel for possession. There’s rituals to attend to and tasks that go beyond the usual body preparation to keep the sinister shenanigans at bay, but being a novice at battling the forces of darkness is a dangerous game. Raymond is there to shine some light on Rebecca’s current situation and there’s convenient tapes located in the storage basement to assist with the banishment of a demon but it’s gonna be some rough waters. The dead are restless, violence is intensifying and the shadows are growing deeper. Plenty of by-the-number horror beats are hit and I’m guessing that honoring the inspiration for the film leads to some rather clumsy plotting. All I’m saying is needlessly complicated puzzles make more sense in gameplay and don’t translate well to the cinematic universe. I’ve also never successfully banished a demon so what the fuck do I know? The minimal cast is fine and there’s some suitably spooky bits but again, I have no frame of reference to add any disappointment to how things are presented. There’s just an abundance of familiarity especially in those dramatic flashbacks to Rebecca’s trauma and general sense of pointlessness as the film comes to a close. As with most games I have taken the time to play, the aesthetics hit the proper vibe but the story leaves much to be desired.
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