Alone with the dead, and shitting the bed.

Me and the wife were somewhat excited for this, with tempered expectations. We’d watched a couple Let’s Plays of the game (Markiplier and jacksepticeye), and they were very enjoyable. The game worked on a number of different levels—it was sufficiently spooky, the lore was actually interesting—it gave you exactly what you need from a game like this.

This kind of thing very often doesn’t translate to the big screen, so like I said, expectations were tempered.

Little did I know, this movie would take those expectations and take a big steamy dump on them.

Much of what made the video game work was the methodical nature of performing autopsies on the various subjects—patients? cadavers? whatever you call them in this case. The work itself is interesting and grotesque enough that it pulls you in, which lets the game take its time with the scares and actually catch you off guard. You get caught up in what you’re doing, you go to grab supplies, and then WAMMO—a specter flies at you out of nowhere.

The film, unfortunately, spends maybe five minutes somewhat effectively recreating that tone before it drops any sense of subtlety or patience. The remaining 80-odd minutes are just wammo, all the way home.

The main thing the movie tries to do is hit you over the head with a constant barrage of different scares—some lifted directly from the game, some not—on the hope that at least some of them land. I’m pretty sure almost every single one crashes and burns. There’s no tension, just noise. Things happen constantly, but none of it sticks.

My wife kept commenting that they really nailed the look of the mortuary. Yup. Looks just like the game. Hats off to the set designer. But if that’s the only positive thing you can say about the movie, you may be in deep doodoo.

The one thing I did come away appreciating was Paul Sparks as Raymond, the guy running the mortuary. He’s responsible for most of the lore dumping throughout the movie, either in person or through recordings as he trains Rebecca on all the fun little quirks of the job—like, you know, demonic possession and what-not. His voice commands attention and he does a good job delivering a lot of dialogue that probably would’ve felt pretty clunky in less capable hands.

The creature design is maybe halfway decent considering the likely low budget… if I’m being nice. Who am I kidding—I’m not. The main ghoul pulled straight from the game has this bizarre, unnatural-looking mouth and the closer you get, the worse it looks.

If you want to see this kind of premise actually work, go watch The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Seriously—if you haven’t seen it, run, don’t walk. It’s a stone-cold classic and accomplishes everything this movie utterly fails at. It’s some damn good spookery.

I really wish I had more to say about this clunker, but I can honestly barely remember anything else about it. That’s how memorable it is.

If anything, it made me want to go back and watch someone play the game again, just to wash the taste of this out of my mouth.

It was short. So there’s that. And it’s on Shudder—which I already pay for—so it was basically free.

It’s fine enough for a late-night watch with friends and a few beers when your attention span is somewhere between doomscrolling and half-watching.

Otherwise, skip it.

Verdict: Yikes.