Jacob Elordi's 2020 Horror Movie With A 97% Rotten Tomatoes Score Is A Hidden Gem

Jacob Elordi's breakout performance in "Euphoria" already painted him as a promising performer, but the actor has since displayed an incredible range across myriad projects. There's a lot to glean from Elordi-led films like "Saltburn" and "Priscilla," as well as his latest turn as the Creature in Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein," where he actualizes an astonishingly heartbreaking character transformation. It is also worth looking back at Elordi's earlier projects, especially Ryan Spindell's "The Mortuary Collection," a horror anthology that weaves gross-out gore with in-your-face humor to produce mixed, but mostly enjoyable results. Elordi is featured in "Segment 2: Unprotected," where he plays a frat boy who ends up playing a horrible price after a one-night stand.

Horror anthologies can often be challenging, as disparate tales need to be connected by some kind of unifying thread to be effective. In Spindell's film, these macabre stories are narrated by Montgomery Dark (a brilliant Clancy Brown), the local mortician. Dark converses with Sam (Caitlin Custer), an eccentric young woman who seems to relish these disturbing tidbits as opposed to being repulsed by them. Out of the four anthology tales, Elordi's "Unprotected" is unfortunately the weakest, as its body horror sequences lean a bit too much on loud, ludicrous humor that is deliberately stretched to its limits. While Elordi's Jake is a dishonest jerk who totally deserves the consequences of his actions, the faults of this segment lie in lackluster storytelling that misunderstands the sincere absurdity inherent in horror (read /Film's review of the film here). 

That said, "The Mortuary Collection" is still extremely watchable, and the film even sports an impressive 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. This high praise is somewhat well-earned, as the Brown-Custer dynamic allows this uneven anthology to emerge as an engaging genre.

The seeds for Spindell's anthology were planted in 2015's "The Babysitter Murders," the director's 22-minute short that subverts every trope associated with the slasher genre. This is a delightfully gory adventure that submerges itself in its terrific imagery, which Spindell expands and refashions into a brand new segment in "The Mortuary Collection." With a solid foundation to build upon, this particular tale is able to eclipse its predecessor and execute a twist ending that bleeds directly into the framing device that ties everything together. Even with Spindell's tendency to veer into extremes, these dramatic moments work well as pulpy horror that is effective and self-aware at the same time.

The common thread here is justified comeuppance, as these stories loosely follow the framework of a morality play that unabashedly embraces nightmarish gore. As a result, an irresponsible womanizer is forced to undergo unimaginable pain, a woman committing petty theft encounters something monstrous and otherworldly during a party, and a grieving husband goes through the wringer once he's consumed by horrific guilt. There's something for everyone in these mini-stories, making "The Mortuary Collection" the perfect choice for a weekend watch party with friends who appreciate horror.

Spindell's anthology is no "Creepshow," but it seems to be a loving homage to the heightened luridness of EC Comics (which George A. Romero and Stephen King's anthology also drew from), although some of its exaggerated tonality falls completely flat. In the end, every horror enthusiast will appreciate the fictional town of Raven's End, and everything it has to offer in all its gothic glory.