It makes sense that human beings evolved to find comfort in the familiar. After all, if something is familiar, it can be predicted – and if it can be predicted, it can be dealt with. That’s why horror media often loses much of the scare factor the second time you experience it, as being able to anticipate frights naturally makes them less effective (though one could argue that the anticipation itself is just as important).
However, this isn’t always the case, as the rise of interactive horror has allowed genre creators to explore a new avenue of unpredictable frights in the world of videogames. While scripted events like dogs jumping through windows in the original Resident Evil work in much the same way as the static terror of a traditional scary movie, some games opt for a more random distribution of frights meant to keep players constantly on their toes.
One of the most successful examples of this is DarkStone Digital’s The Mortuary Assistant, a 2022 indie horror title that took the world by storm with its chilling mix of job simulation (with the player actually having to go through with their assigned procedures despite the hauntings) and unpredictable jump scares/story events that make every single playthrough unique. With the game turning into a household name, it’s only natural that Hollywood would soon come knocking with an offer to adapt the title into a feature-length movie.
Fast forward to 2026 and Jeremiah Kipp’s The Mortuary Assistant is releasing in limited theaters today, Friday the 13th. In honor of this long-awaited adaptation looking like a faithful re-imagining of its source material, I think it’s worth looking back on the procedurally-generated scares that made the game so popular in the first place, and how Kipp might go about adapting such a unique experience.
Before Darkstone Digital grew into a fully-fledged studio, solo developer Brian Clarke began working on his initial version of The Mortuary Assistant during early 2020. This early prototype was more streamlined and focused less on accurately emulating a real funeral home, but Clarke was surprised to learn that fans were actually willing to support a potential full release simulating real-life embalming techniques while also exploring the story behind the haunting.
It’s precisely this juxtaposition of horror imagery and the day-to-day requirements of a repetitive job that ended up making the project so special, with Clarke soon realizing that he had found a formula capable of sustaining unlimited scares. Since players would always be busy repeating a familiar gameplay loop, any variation of the established formula would immediately stand out as a sign that something was very wrong, with this unpredictability leaving players in a constant state of paranoia even when nothing was happening.
However, despite appearing in random order, the scares themselves were also expertly crafted. Not only are many of these unsettling moments used to flesh out Rebecca’s character and reference her troubling family history (with some of these scenes even showing up in the trailer for the new movie), but Clarke has since gone on record explaining that his main influence when coming up with the title’s supernatural shenanigans came from viral internet videos and found footage movies.
Apparently, the developer wanted to combine modern internet horror tropes with psychological thrills in order to breathe new life into the possession subgenre, with the randomization serving as a way to keep things from feeling like a spooky walking simulator. The procedural presentation also meant that players would be encouraged to play the title over and over again in order to experience a fresh set of scares, making the game into something of an evergreen compilation of the best tropes of the genre.
This also applies to The Mortuary Assistant’s story, as a single shift might be enough for you to get the overall gist of the situation, but it’ll likely take you a handful of runs in order to truly begin to unearth the secrets of River Fields Mortuary. And since the game only gives out a bite-sized portion of narrative at a time, players have no choice but to keep coming back for more. This is why the big-screen adaptation needs to take extra care when translating all of these elements to film, as The Mortuary Assistant was perfectly tailored for an interactive medium.
It would undoubtedly be fun to see Kipp implement a Clue-inspired gimmick where different theaters get to see different cuts of the film with multiple alternate endings, but it makes more sense for the filmmaker to simply dig into Clarke’s influences and borrow from the same sources he did when coming up with scares for the movie. We may have to settle for a linear sequence of frights, but I’m still excited to watch these elaborate scares play out like big-budget Life of Luxury videos with homages to cult classic movies like As Above So Below.
That’s why I think merely adapting the overall narrative (which is surprisingly in-depth if you’re patient enough to explore all of the title’s puzzles) and the “workplace horror” aspect of the experience is the right way to go, especially since fans can simply go home and play the original game after watching the movie if they feel like they need an extra dose of demonic thrills. In fact, I really like the idea of the film and the game being complementary projects instead of competing products.
And with other procedurally-generated indie hits like Exit 8 getting their own successful film adaptations (with that one even impressing audiences at Cannes last year), I know I’m not the only one excited to see how different filmmakers manage to translate one of the most interesting trends in modern horror media.
