The Mortuary Assistant is the latest video game to be getting the silver screen treatment.
The indie horror – which has been a huge hit since it launched at the beginning of August – was reportedly plucked for an adaptation before the full game released earlier this month.
Director Jeremiah Kipp says the film will be a “companion piece” to the game, and Kipp hopes to “retain the minimalist setting in and around the mortuary, the fascination with the process of embalming, and the nerve-shredding terror of the gameplay”.
“Movies have always been the main inspiration for the style of my games,” said Brian Clarke, who created The Mortuary Assistant (thanks, PC Gamer). “I’m always trying to create story, dialogue, and moments that feel filmic. An opportunity to bring this project full circle is making a dream of mine a reality.”
Ted Hentschke, who is publisher DreadXP’s head of production, says that as it’s “really hard to reflect mechanics in film, and the replay is more a mechanical device that we utilise in the narrative than a strict narrative device”, the film will “focus more on the overall narrative and the themes of the game and weave that five-part story into one”.
ICYMI, Bertie wrote a wonderfully insightful piece about his experiences with The Mortuary Assistant, saying: “what I didn’t expect to feel from it, and which definitely runs through it, was a sense of purposeful dignity in the work I was doing, returning dignity to the bodies I was working on.
“Death left them disordered and took control from them so I have to step in and reorder them. That’s why I’m closing their mouths and eyes, and removing the fluids, and cleaning them up, however barbaric it may seem. And even though there’s a demon loose, there’s a feeling of peaceful accomplishment and calm to it. It actually feels like a nice place to be.”
