What makes you think they’re here to help you?
Main Cast: Robert Patrick, Jessica Lowndes
Director: Adam Gierasch
Each year there are movies produced that are never seen by the public. Their content is considered too graphic, too disturbing, too shocking for general audiences. This is one of those films.
After leaving a Mardi Gras party, friends Emily (Jessica Lowndes), Clare (Ashley Schneider), Bobby (Ross Kohn), Jude (Ross McCall), and Russian exchange student Dmitriy, whom they picked up along the way, wind up in a car accident on a deserted highway. They’ve hit an escaped hospital patient, and when an ambulance suddenly shows up, looking for the victim, the paramedics convince the kids they should get looked at, too.
The gang all pile into the ambulance and go back to the hospital where, one by one, they’re sent into an exam room to be seen by Dr. Benway (Robert Patrick). Problem is, the only person Dr. Benway’s interested in helping is his dying wife, and he does this by dissecting his patients, stringing their organs up around the room, and feeding blood and fluids from the organ-mobile into a dialysis-type machine, which then feeds into Lisette, keeping her alive.
Simple enough, huh? Maybe a little too simple?
This was a beautifully-shot movie, with killer gore effects, a good score, and decent-enough acting. The problem I had with AUTOPSY was the plot. Or rather, with certain aspects of the plot.
When everyone arrives at the hospital, the kids are told they’re operating on a skeleton crew, but the only people on duty seem to be one nurse, Marian (Jenette Goldstein), the two paramedics, Scott and Travis, and the doctor. There are no patients in the waiting room, which would strike me as off right off the bat as I’ve never in my life been to an ER and not seen another person, no matter what time you go there. There are none of the usual sounds of a hospital, no background chatter, no nothing. I know in the world of the movie that makes sense, because of the nature of the hospital’s real purpose, but realistically something like this would have made me suspicious from the get-go and I can’t say I’d have stuck around to get my turn with the doctor. So I’m not buying it.
This implausibility issue aside, AUTOPSY had a lot of good things going for it.
The actors are all pretty believable, and Robert Patrick as the evil doctor really sells his shtick well. Jenette Goldstein as Nurse Marian overplays her bit just a tad, but in hindsight there does seem to be something just this side of unhinged about her.
Writer/director Adam Gierasch obviously loves horror and all its trappings–maybe a little too much as I personally feel he’s cheesed the movie up a little here and there with cheap one-liners and scares. Granted, there are more than enough honestly creepy moments to make up for the movie’s shortcomings in that department. Like I said, it’s a beautifully-made movie (cinematography by Anthony B. Richmond who also shot THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH in 1976), I just didn’t buy the particulars of the plot. I think, given the right script, this guy could make some really amazing horror movies, if he can get out of that “horror” mindset. Somewhere along the way Jason and Freddy convinced everyone slasher equaled horror, but there’s so much more to it than that, and so few horror directors are interested in exploring the true potential of what a horror movie could be. If Gierasch is really as into horror as he claims, and his work really speaks for itself, then I for one hope the future holds great things for him.
AUTOPSY is far from perfect, but it was a good start, both for Gierasch, and for the cast as well, Lowndes especially.
I probably won’t be watching AUTOPSY again any time soon, but it’s certainly not one I’m opposed to watching again. It’s got that big gaping plot hole, but despite that it’s still got a goofy charm I enjoyed.
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C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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