The Mortuary Assistant director Jeremiah Kipp says the game’s developer was ‘enormously supportive’ of the movie — and teases a surprise cameo

The Mortuary Assistant is the latest horror video game to be developed into a movie. It’s coming to theaters as well as the streaming service Shudder on February 13, so we don’t have long to wait now.

It’s been an exciting time for horror video games. Recently, Markiplier’s Iron Lung performed incredibly well at the box office, and now The Mortuary Assistant adapts another viral game that plenty of Twitch streamers and YouTubers have been obsessed with.

If you’re not familiar with The Mortuary Assistant, it follows Rebecca Owens, the titular assistant, who serves as the player character as she works her shifts at River Fields Mortuary.

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It’s first-person, which makes it 10 times scarier as you navigate this haunted location, trying to figure out which corpses are possessed, the demon possessing them, and perform the correct exorcism if you want to survive. TechRadar’s Kara Phillips said she played The Mortuary Assistant, and now she’s sleeping with the light on, so trust me, it is very scary.

I had the chance to chat with The Mortuary Assistant‘s director, Jeremiah Kipp, ahead of the movie’s release, where I was interested in how the video game’s developer, Brian Clarke of DarkStone Digital, was involved in the process. I learned that Clarke served as a screenwriter and was very supportive of the movie overall.

Kipp told me, “As an artist and a partner, Brian was with us for every step of the journey. He was enormously supportive of my ideas and felt strongly that the best way to honor the game was to make a movie that worked independently in and of itself. We shared a point of view about what this movie was about, and what the underpinnings were.”

“We wanted it to be scary, but also to resonate, and he knew the deep respect I had for the world he created, and the sensitivity he brought to the characters, how well researched and cohesive the mortuary science was, how his film was both scary but also filled with a sense of gnawing dread.”

Clarke was involved in so much of the process, including set and character designs, to ensure they remained true to the original vision of the horror game. So if you’ve played the game, you should expect a lot of familiarity when you watch the movie.

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Kipp added: “When we were building the set, our wizard production designer, Chelsea Turner, and I would include Brian in those discussions, making sure we understood elements of the environment that were key to the total atmosphere and the storytelling. We showed him every incarnation of the design of the creatures he had originated, discussed every casting choice with him.”

“I’ve directed police procedurals before where we’d have a homicide detective on set with us as a technical expert, and we kept Brian on set every day (he only missed a few shooting days) as our resident demonologist, asking him questions about the lore to make sure our film was respecting the rules he had so carefully built out in his game.”

The Mortuary Assistant – Official Trailer – YouTube

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Clarke’s involvement in The Mortuary Assistant movie didn’t stop behind the scenes, though, and fans will also get to see him in front of the camera. Kipp told me that Clarke was keen to play one of the dead bodies in the movie, so keep your eyes peeled for a familiar face.

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Kipp said, “Brian was a good sport in playing the second dead body we see in the film, but having him on set as an actor was an easy way to have the writer with us.”

“The script by Tracee Beebe did a wonderful job following through on the story arc of Rebecca’s character, and Brian was able to come in like the cavalry in the script process, bringing the material back into the world he’d made. I showed him every cut of the film, and even had him interview sound designers with me because I felt the game’s soundscape was key to its success; the way the horror isn’t just seen but felt in your very bones.”

Kipp concluded by saying, “Our sound designer and composer, Jeffery Alan Jones, was the right choice, talking about River Fields Mortuary as if each room had its own personality and sense of unease.”

I’m incredibly excited for The Mortuary Assistant to arrive on Shudder, particularly because of the developer’s huge involvement in the movie. It’s so cool to see big collaborative projects like this come to life and exist in multiple formats to tell their story.

This is one of my major February horror picks, but if you’d like to see more, check out 7 new horror movies on Netflix, Shudder, HBO Max, and more in February 2026.

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