Silent Hill Who? This Movie Will Be The Best Video Game Adaptation Of 2026

The video game adaptation is always a tricky beast, especially when it comes to horror games. A lot of this rests on the unrealistic expectations of the viewer who thinks that they will be just as scared sitting in a dark cinema as in their armchair at home, gaming. 

This is never how it goes, mainly because the immersive environment of a game is hard to replicate, coupled with the fact that watching a movie is a passive activity, while gaming involves active participation. But despite the challenge, it is not impossible to craft a feature film that captures the essence of games enough to leave the audience suitably unsettled.  

So far, 2026 has gotten off to a bad start on the horror game adaptation front, with Christopher Gans’ Return to Silent Hill pretty much a complete disaster. Quite how Return to Silent Hill is so terrible is hard to understand, as Gans is the director of the original Silent Hill movie, a horror game adaptation that the fans have embraced. Whilst Gans manages to capture some of the aesthetic of the famous town in Return to Silent Hill, the film is plagued with a weak script, weaker acting, and a series of hairpieces so bad that it looks like they were snagged from Temu to save the production some pennies. 

Fans of the franchise have been disappointed with the film, and so all eyes turn to the next horror game adaptation on the horizon – Jeremiah Kipp’s The Mortuary Assistant, coming to streaming on March 27. Does it succeed where Return to Silent Hill failed? 

What Is The Mortuary Assistant Game Like?

Originally released in 2022 on the PC, the video game version of The Mortuary Assistant became an almost immediate viral sensation. Fans of horror games flocked to play it, and The Mortuary Assistant was soon ported to Xbox, PlayStation, and the Nintendo Switch. From there, the cult grew even more, with players enraptured by the game's blend of life simulator and jump scares. 

The game follows the story of newly certified mortuary assistant Rebecca Owens, who, during a night shift, discovers that demons are trying to possess her via the bodies that she is working on. Gameplay finds the player trapped inside the morgue, with the only way out being to try and banish the demonic entities that are targeting her. This is done through a mixture of performing realistic embalming techniques, as well as looking for clues to identify the various demons, so that they can be banished. 

Rather than being action-based like the Resident Evil series of games, The Mortuary Assistant is a quieter affair, relying on atmosphere, disturbing imagery, and psychological dread to render the player a nervous wreck. These components all sound easy enough to replicate for the big screen, with the game’s narrative themes of body horror and possession also being very popular with the modern horror movie crowd. 

How The Mortuary Assistants' Unique Scare Could Translate To The Big Screen

Interestingly, work on a The Mortuary Assistant movie was already underway before the game was completed. Director Jeremiah Kipp has explained in interviews that he was brought on board early, meaning that he was one of the first people in the world to experience the gameplay. Kipp admitted to connecting with the game’s protagonist, Rebecca Owens, and the opportunity to explore her psyche was what drew him to the project. Owens remains as the protagonist for the feature, the story digging into her past addictions and unresolved grief after losing her father. 

Having Kipp steeped in the game from the start, rather than coming to it later, should hopefully ensure that the essence of the game is better translated to the screen. Whilst an engaging protagonist is vital to the enjoyment of any film, horror or otherwise, the success of The Mortuary Assistant will also rely on its scare factor. For gamers, the frights came from the unsettling atmosphere and the knowledge that at any moment, the cadaver in the room with them could spark to life. Alongside that, the game would often, without warning, plunge the player into darkness. This unpredictability continued with the arrival of shadowy creatures who not only appeared from nowhere, but could also race towards Rebecca at an alarming rate. These elements all feel achievable in film, especially with Kipp being no stranger to the horror genre. 

Kipp’s movie Slapface tells the dark story of a young boy and the monster he finds lurking in the woods. Swaddled in darkness and oozing with atmosphere, Slapface demonstrates that Jeremiah Kipp can craft a film filled with near-oppressive dread, a vital element for The Mortuary Assistant’s success. The director has also gone on record confirming that the film will more closely resemble its source than some of its peers. Fingers crossed for an adaptation closer to The Last of Us than Return to Silent Hill.

What To Watch If You Like The Mortuary Assistant

Although the game adaptation angle is new, The Mortuary Assistant isn’t the first horror movie to centre itself inside a morgue. Narratively, The Possession of Hannah Grace is perhaps closest to the film. The plot joins cop and recovering addict Megan Reed as she begins working at a morgue. There, she starts to experience a series of bizarre and unexplainable events, leading her to believe that one of the corpses is possessed by an evil presence. The film was released in 2018 and sounds a lot like it might have, consciously or subconsciously, helped inspire The Mortuary Assistant video game. 

More morgue-set nightmares can be found in the fantastically creepy The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Set over the course of one night, the film finds a father and son mortician team called in to look at the body of a Jane Doe. As the autopsy progresses, strange things start to happen, and, after finding odd markings on the body, it becomes clear that something very sinister is occurring. Directed by André Øvredal, The Autopsy of Jane Doe demonstrates just how terrifying silence and stillness can be when orchestrated correctly. One thing that is certain about watching it, you’ll never look at a bell in the same way again. 

Another movie in the same vein is the similarly named The Mortuary Collection. A horror anthology that features an early performance from the now Oscar-nominated Jacob Elordi, The Mortuary Collection has an eccentric mortician recounting spooky stories of his experience in the job to his potential new assistant. Although full of gore and some frights, the film is much more of a horror comedy, making it the perfect viewing choice after watching The Mortuary Assistant, to try and shake off any potential nightmares.