The Mortuary Collection: Clancy Brown Rocks This Horror Roundup
In The Mortuary Collection, a mortician tells stories of his trade to a curious applicant. Stories of Lovecraftian creatures, students who have unprotected sex, and a serial killer that takes their young victim’s teeth. Will his young applicant take the job, or will she make it out of the mortuary alive?
The world is not made of atoms; it is made of stories.
Raven’s End
Photo Credit: Trapdoor Pictures/Shudder
Montgomery Dark(Clancy Brown) is presiding over the funeral of a young boy in a seaside town named Raven’s End. Dark gets a bit carried away, but soon reigns himself in, and the guests leave. As he tidies up, Dark catches a young woman, Sam(Caitlin Custer), trying to peek at the body in the coffin. He admonishes her, and she tells him she is at the mortuary for a job.
She marvels at all of the books, and he tells her every volume is the story of one who has passed through his embalming laboratory.
Before she signs on the dotted line, she wants a story about some of his more permanent guests. Montgomery is more than happy to oblige.
Four Stories
What follows are four stories that are hit, miss, or in between.
Story one is a quick tale that involves a woman that opens a door she shouldn’t.
Story two is a cautionary tale about safe sex on a college campus, and the consequences a couple faces after a one night stand. This story is the goriest, and is not for the squeamish.
Story three is about a man who marries the love of his life. She becomes catatonic. His frustration and anger slowly drives him mad.
Story four is about a babysitter who fails in their mission to protect their young charge when a psychopath escapes a local insane asylum. This is by far the best of the four.
The Stories are Tied Together
Photo Credit: Trapdoor Pictures/Shudder
The doctor, Harold Kubler(Michael C. Nelson) appears in three of the stories, putting them all in the same town, just as Montgomery says they are. Dr. Kubler is a bit sketchy on the ethics, but still doesn’t deserve his fate.
Clancy Brown, Y’all
Montgomery Dark, mortician. Indentured servant to the great beyond.
Photo Credit: Trapdoor Pictures/Shudder
Most readers know Clancy Brown. His work includes the voice of Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants, Burg from The Mandalorian, Blackhand from Warcraft, Sergeant/Private Zim in Starship Troopers, and my personal favorite, The Kurgan in Highlander. The man stole scenes from the late Sean Connery, for Pete’s sake.
Clancy is amazeballs, as always. His makeup makes him just the right amount of creepy without going overboard. Baby teeth on adults always freak me out. And his sickly-yet not pale-coloring is a nice touch. Everything Clancy is in, he elevates.
And don’t even get me started about his voice. Clancy Brown uses it to lend so much to the character.
Every scene with Clancy makes this worth watching.
The Sets
Photo credit: Trapdoor Pictures/Shudder
I love the sets. Everything about them matches each story. The mortuary/funeral home gives off the air of being used and worn, yet made well. You can almost smell the leather and trace amounts of formaldehyde.
There is an anachronistic feel to the movie; you don’t exactly know the decade each story takes place. It has almost a Napoleon Dynamite feel to it in that way.
According to IMDb, the books were leftovers from the show The Librarians.
You Will Have Questions About the End
The end doesn’t make 100% sense, because a character seems to be allowed to continue to be a killer. I wish they had left that part out, but whatever. And one character gets to be at peace, but it seems pretty darn painful.
This movie isn’t pure fluff. You do have to pay some attention to get the full story, and I like that. The payoff is near the end, which gives you an “aha!” moment when you get it. This warrants a second viewing, much like The Sixth Sense. And I do expect comparisons to Tales from the Hood…
The soundtrack is pretty good, too!
The stories lag in parts, and may not have the payoff you expect. However, The Mortuary Collection is going to be a nice tradition for me every Halloween.
The Mortuary Collection is available on streaming services such as Shudder and Amazon.
