Bestselling horror video game The Mortuary Assistant is set for a live action feature adaptation starring Willa Holland (Arrow) and Paul Sparks (House of Cards), Deadline reports today.
Epic Pictures' Dread horror label will handle production on the pic, which will be directed by Jeremiah Kipp (Slapface) and is currently in production in Missouri.
Released in 2022, DarkStone Digital's The Mortuary Assistant was created by Brian Clarke, and is set in 1998 in a small town in Connecticut, where players control a newly hired assistant at a haunted mortuary.
Per Deadline, Holland will star as:
…Rebecca Owens, a recent mortuary science graduate who takes a night shift job at River Fields Mortuary. Initially, the job seems straightforward — embalming bodies, completing paperwork, and keeping things tidy. But once Rebecca starts working the night shift, things take a dark turn.
Sparks plays Raymond Delver, Rebecca’s mysterious mortician boss who might not be as friendly as first he seems.
In a statement to Deadline, Kipp says, promisingly, that: “We’ve captured the atmosphere of singular dread that players responded to so powerfully – this movie will be scary as hell.”
Clarke, who also adapted the screenplay alongside Tracee Beebe, adds:
“Seeing the mortuary assistant evolve over the years from a small prototype to a full feature film is beyond anything I could have imagined as a solo developer. Jeremiah Kipp is an insanely skilled director, and it has been one of the highlights of my life working with him. Jeremiah and the entire team at Epic Pictures have done an amazing job capturing the spirit of the game while adding their own unique cinematic flair. It is an honor to see Willa and Paul bring these characters to life along with the rest of the film crew. I feel extremely fortunate and can’t wait for fans to see The Mortuary Assistant expand into new territory.”
Behind the scenes, Patrick Ewald’s Epic Pictures is producing via Dread, alongside Cole Payne’s Traverse Media. The production is financed by Epic Pictures and the UK-based Creativity Capital.
Look for updates on The Mortuary Assistant as we get them.
