Product Details

• Actors: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Anna Loos, Sebastian Blomberg, Holger Speckhahn
• Directors: Stefan Ruzowitzky
• Writers: Stefan Ruzowitzky, Peter Engelmann
• Producers: Andrea Willson, Jakob Claussen, Norbert Preuss, Thomas Wöbke
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: German, Latin
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: October 2, 2001
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000056WRW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,454 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cuts like a knife and feels so right, November 18, 2003

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anatomy (Special Edition) (DVD)

Anatomy has a lot of good things to offers viewers: it's a horror film featuring red-hot German actress Franka Potente of Run, Lola, Run fame, and it quite ably delivers the goods. While not as groundbreaking as Run, Lola, Run, Potente's cinematic journey into the darker side of humanity is well-plotted and beautifully shot. Still being somewhat new to foreign films, I always find it fascinating to see how a foreign director molds and shapes a story. The look and feel of Anatomy is well-nigh perfect, and only a few minor issues with the plot and characterization keep it from earning five stars in my book. If you only familiarize yourself with one German actress, Potente is definitely the number one choice; she may be young, but she is a wonderfully developed actress who, I am sure, could carry the burden of a bad movie quite far on her own. Such an effort on her part is not needed in Anatomy, though, as this movie is quite good from start to finish, even turning out to be far less predictable than I was expecting.

Franka Potente plays Paula Henning, a young doctor-to-be who earns the right to study at a highly respected medical school in Heidelberg, the very school her proud, aging grandfather taught at years ago. She wants only to study and learn, but she ends up living with a fellow student from Munich named Gretchen (Anna Loos), who is quite a character in and of herself, and taking up with a strange fellow student named Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg) . The new students get an electrifying introduction to life at Heidelberg and soon begin their studies. When a young man whose life Paula had saved just days earlier turns up in the form of a cadaver on her lab table, she begins to grow uneasy. Convinced that the lad could not have died of his specific medical condition, she does a little research of her own and finds out that the guy was shot up with a substance that turns the blood into a rubbery substance. We the audience already know what happened to the poor guy; in fact, the opening scene of the movie takes us directly to a surgeon's table where a confused patient wakes up to find doctors basically turning his abdominal contents upside down. Such a scene might be a little disturbing to some, but the gore is, sadly, kept rather to a minimum throughout the entire movie.

A three-letter marking on her friend-turned-cadaver's body leads Paula into a realm of mystery, cruelty, and inherent danger. The Anti-Hippocratic Society, supposedly banned long ago, is apparently still operating under the noble auspices of Heidelberg's respected medical school; the members of this "secret lodge" don't let ethics or even common decency get in the way of their medical research, making a habit of dissecting human beings while these subjects are still alive. It's a pretty unpleasant business. To make matters worse, there is seemingly a rogue element of the Society at work, leading to several medical students themselves being killed not for dastardly research purposes but for emotional reasons. Yes, there is a madman somewhere out there, and Paula finds herself drawn farther and farther into his dangerous web. The genuine suspense that builds up over the last half of the film is energized further when Paula makes a shocking discovery that really hits her in the emotional gut.

The prominent bad guy sort of reveals himself a little early in the game, warning our heroine to stop nosing around, but his mysterious partner remains a mystery until the final moments. Bad Guy Number One, I think, goes a little overboard in his whole cool, calm, and collected closet psychotic behavior. I think he patterns much of his character's traits and behaviors on those of Herbert West of Reanimator fame, but these two characters are working at separate ends of the whole "life and death" spectrum and this guy is certainly no Jeffrey Combs. Still, it's fun to see a mad scientist-type villain take pride in his work.

Much of the gore involved in this subject matter presented on film is implied but not actually shown; while I personally would like to have been visually saturated in blood and guts, I think the lack of gore for gore's sake lends the movie a level of integrity that many a horror film cannot claim. The whole atmosphere of the film is palpable, the suspense builds up quite nicely, the ending comes with a potential little surprise, and Franka Potente is amazing. What's not to like? I should mention that this German film is dubbed in English, and while the dubbing isn't bad it necessarily denies us a complete sense of our characters' feelings at important moments. In the final analysis, this is quality dark entertainment that should please horror buffs as well as all Franka Potente fans in general.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A FUN HORROR FLICK WITH A FOREIGN TWIST, October 24, 2002

By 

"cbrn134" (albany, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anatomy (Special Edition) (DVD)

I saw this movie solely because it is one of the few movies you can get in America that stars Franka Potente, best known from "Run Lola Run," and it turned out to be a good movie too. Franka Potente is perfect in her role as the somewhat reserved heroine who uncovers an evil scheme in the prestigious medical university in Heidelburg. It was great seeing a foreign horror movie after seeing so many American ones. "Anatomy" is scary because it doesn't use a recycled plot and the movie really makes you wonder about medical science. It's not from Tom Tykwer, director of "Lola," and it doesn't have that post-modern feel, but it's still definitely worth seeing this good, solid horror flick.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant, for a horror movie, November 24, 2004

By 

Stacey Lee Flowerdew (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anatomy (Special Edition) (DVD)

Why is it that the best horror movies are foreign? Is it that they are more intelligent and less likely to follow the tired, used conventions of Hollywood? "Anatomie" is basically a somewhat subdued slasher film, but it has the bonus of starring the always fabulous Franka Potente. Unlike the majority of horror movies, this one is WELL MADE and doesn't look like it was filmed in someone's backyard with a camcorder. Though like the majority of horror films, it is set in a college (it's always college or high school), and deals with something psychologically uncomfortable for everyone- possible dissection! Not to mention, the whole good vs. bad convention: is it a bad thing to perform inhumane studies on human cadavers if the research can possibly save lives in the future?

P.S.- don't watch the sequel. ;)