Autopsy (2008)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Adam Gierasch

Writers (WGA):

Adam Gierasch (written by) &
Jace Anderson (written by) ...

Release Date:

9 January 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Evil Cuts Both Ways

Plot:

A young woman tries to find her injured boyfriend in a bizzare and dangerous hospital. |

Plot Keywords:

Hospital | Morgue | Drill In The Head | Face Slap | Tooth Pulling

Cast

Robert Patrick	...	Dr. David Benway
Jessica Lowndes	...	Emily
Jenette Goldstein	...	Nurse Marian
Michael Bowen	...	Travis
Robert LaSardo	...	Scott
Ross Kohn	...	Bobby
Ashley Schneider	...	Clare
Arcadiy Golubovich	...	Dmitriy (as Arcady Golubovich)
Ross McCall	...	Jude
Gregg Brazzel	...	Man Under Car (as Greg Brazzel)
Elijah Hardy	...	Gregory
Kevin M. White	...	Man in Hallway
Tatyana Kanavka	...	Gretchen
Jeff L. Deist	...	Scarred Naked Man (as Jeff Deist)
Eric F. Adams	...	Officer Mike Jacobs

Also Known As:

Mercy (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, language and drug content.

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:18 | Singapore:R21 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

FlipZide Pictures

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Jude wants to open the bottle of nitrous gas, Scott prevents him, claiming it is flammable. Actually nitrous oxide is a non-flammable gas.

A decent effort, with good and bad points

I can't say I had much hope for this one and I must confess I mainly watched it thinking it might be amusingly bad. More fool me, for this is in many respects quite a gnarly film. The duo behind it, Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson had previously worked on scripts for movies which didn't impress me much, but in the directors chair, Gierasch does very well, keeping a dark, edgy mood for much of the first half of the film and letting things go nuts in the latter. The story sees some young adults who have a road accident and land up in a freaky hospital, where as one might expect, things go very wrong. For b picture veteran Robert Patrick plays the head doctor and Jenette Goldstein is the head nurse, and anyone familiar with the former from such roles as T1000 in Terminator 2 or the latter as Diamondback from the great Near Dark can tell that this ain't no ordinary hospital. Without going into details, things get very nasty. There's grue and some sinister sights right from the get go, enhanced by the creepy setting and some Argento style lighting and direction tricks. Then things get pretty savage and there are some good tense moments as well as some pretty mean goings on. In theory this could have been really mighty but it's held back by the writing and characterisation. None of the good characters are very fleshed out or sympathetic beyond their plight, so whilst the actors do their best its hard to care about them. Plus the bad characters are caricatured and bar Jenette Goldstein's convincingly bossy, imperious nurse not too interesting. Robert Patrick's doctor could have been a great mad scientist (named Dr Benway in a cool Naked Lunch reference) but while his motive is clear, its never explained why the specific things he does will help him achieve his goal. Hence a lot of the time it seems like the gore scenes have no point beyond shocking the audience and this gets kinda obnoxious. Also, the tone wavers between sheer grimness and sick humour but the mixture is too much in favor of the grim for the humour to leave more than a bad taste and work against the overall effectiveness of the film. There are some funny lines but they don't work with the mean spiritedness. These issues come to the fore in the second half, which largely abandons the earlier chills in favor of going for brutality and by the end much of the entertainment value has seeped away. I don't have a total downer on this film, since it is impressively nasty, with ace gore effects and it is on the whole well directed. I'd recommend it to gore hounds and to an extent to fans of the aforementioned genre stars. Its as gruesome as any of the recent crop of Hostel/Saw type titles but I craved better characters and a more developed story, especially since the story and setting had tons of potential. Still, don't let me put you off, it went down a treat at the screening I saw so watch it if it seems like your kind of thing.