When many filmmakers head up their feature directorial debut, especially on the festival circuit, they tend to lean toward intellectual “serious” fare. Not so Ryan Spindell and The Mortuary Collection, which just had its world premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest. That’s not a slight on Spindell or his movie, but a compliment.

The anthology film, which has yet to be picked up by a distributor, is what I call “gateway horror” – there are some genuinely scary sequences but it’s the sort of movie that might be an adventurous kid’s first foray into the horror genre. A more adult Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, it feels aimed at a demographic a notch older than preteens but with enough scares to still keep it entertaining for adults. I could easily see it becoming a classic Halloween tradition for a number of families or teenage friends.

The framework of the movie is bound together by the storytelling of Montgomery Dark (Clancy Brown), the creepy, ancient mortician of the town’s funeral home. A local legend to the kids, some say Dark is a demon, some say immortal – you get the gist. But more than that, he’s a historian. To him, all lives and their ends are but stories. When a young girl, Sam (Caitlin Custer), applies to be his helper at the mortuary, he tests her mettle by telling her some of those stories, some hilarious, some heartbreaking, some genuinely horrifying. The one constant thread is the deader-than-deadpan mortician, whom Brown plays with a dark and desert-dry comedic delivery that holds the entire movie together and infuses it with gallows humor that is enhanced by Brown’s trademark basso profundo.

Spindell’s writing and directing are even throughout the film, with him deserving praise for creating vastly different segments that all work well. Each story completely changes in tone and tale, but all feel crafted as a labor of love with each one in the anthology getting the same level of care and attention. Spindell has over half a dozen shorts to his name so he’s not inexperienced, but even so, for a first time feature film, it’s remarkably consistent and steady. The first (and shortest story) takes place in the ’50s in a single bathroom location, a bit of creature horror that serves as an appetizer for the later heftier courses. The second revolves around a college frat guy whose indiscretions come back to haunt him in a subverted gender role that marries some pretty gnarly body horror with absurd humor. The third is as tragic as it is grotesque, telling the story of a husband who is trapped as the sole caregiver of his comatose wife who is dying in tiny increments. The fourth is a straightforward babysitter slasher flick – at least, that’s what it appears to be on the surface.

Clancy Brown as mortician Montgomery Dark in 'The Mortuary Collection'

Clancy Brown as mortician Montgomery Dark in ‘The Mortuary Collection’

But it’s cinematographers Elie Smolkin and Caleb Heymann that perhaps deserve even more credit, as does production designer Lauren Fitzsimmons, for the shorts being as visually striking as they are scary. Some of the sequences are downright beautiful in a grotesque way. In particular, there was one slo-mo shot in an elevator of two characters and drops of blood floating in midair that will stick in my mind for quite some time. And, yes, there are some gleefully ghastly practical effects, too, that run the gamut from haunting to snidely funny. If there is one suggestion I have, it’s that the distinct time periods of each short would have been better served with more period-appropriate clothing. Save for the very first story, it was difficult to tell when, exactly, each segment was set.

My other small criticism would be of Spindell’s inability to murder his darlings. His feature first-timer status shows itself at the end, which drags out and could have done with about ten minutes chopped off. Still, that’s a minor complaint; better to have too much than too little.

One excellent and welcome aspect, however, was one I hadn’t anticipated. The Mortuary Collection is decidedly female-forward, with women either getting the upper hand on their antagonists, flipping the script, or stepping into dastardly roles usually reserved for men. I’ll take a movie that could be shaved down by a few minutes if it gives us fresh twists on old stories with women and men sharing equal screentime. Yes, please. More of this.

No word yet on U.S. distribution yet for The Mortuary Collection. But with Scary Stories having recently done such solid business on its way to becoming a quiet hit, we can guess that Mortuary Collection will be snapped up sooner rather than later. Fingers crossed it is, ’cause this was a fun one.

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