Customer Reviews

Autopsy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm not exactly sure why, but I was expecting Autopsy to be a pretty bad entry in this year's After Dark Horrorfest. Well, Autopsy ends up being one of the better entries in this year's lineup, as it provides ample amounts of blood, gore, and entrails, and even a slight wicked sense of humor along the way. The story is typical slasher fare: a group of hard partying friends coming back from Mardi Gras wreck their car, and wind up at a creepy clinic run by the strange Dr. Benway (played by Robert Patrick, William S. Burroughs readers should definitely recognize the not-so-good doctor's name). Before you know it, they're picked off one by one, and wind up in some ultra gorey demises. While Autopsy offers little in the way of ingenuity, it does deliver what horror fans and gorehounds are looking for, and it does both groups justice as well. The acting is all over the place, and we really don't end up caring for any of the characters at all, but in the end, Autopsy winds up being a worthwhile horror dirge. All in all, while there are a number of flicks in this year's After Dark Horrorfest that aren't worth your time, Autopsy is one of the few that actually is, and is worth checking out in that regard alone.

The last of the "8 Films To Die For" that I watched this year is also probably the most "enjoyable." Whereas the other films seemed to want to encourage my suicide with grim themes and cold atmospheres, AUTOPSY harkens back to the old days of horror with gleefully over-the-top psychos and buckets of gore.

This is not to suggest AUTOPSY is the best film of the festival, but it is perhaps the most wildly entertaining. The threadbare story is of five college kids in Louisiana who end up in a car crash. Next thing you know, they are being whisked away to a nearby hospital, sharing an ambulance with a man they ran over, who they are told had left the hospital prior to an operation.

It becomes clear as soon as they arrive that this is not General Hospital! The nurse methodically separates each kid from the others, until only our leading lady, Emily, is left wondering the deserted halls looking for her friends. Soon enough she will be fleeing the resident "mad doctor," who apparently is harvesting organs to keep his dying wife alive.

Now, fear not - I am not revealing plot twists or surprises here, because this is not a movie about story and mystery - it's a simple plot upon which to hang some truly gruesome scenes. If you enjoy gore, you'll find plenty to love about this film - hacked-off limbs, drills to the head, faces pummeled to bloody pulp, intestines spilling all over other people (literally), and a truly bizarre live-operation that has to be seen to be believed!

Fortunately, the filmmakers realize what they are making here, and never for a moment try to make a serious attempt at realism. While the movie isn't silly, like the EVIL DEAD franchise, it does keeps a funhouse tone all throughout. The actors play their roles suitably, with Jenette Goldstein perhaps having the best moments as the germ-phobic nurse. Camera, lighting, staging are all done effectively for the genre.

I would probably have placed this film at the top of the heap, but there are some issues with the final act that let me down a bit. Firstly, the writers seem to run out of energy before the film ends, and we end up with A LOT of scenes of people just walking around empty halls to span the time. This happens enough that the audience has time to start wondering why these kids don't just leave the hospital. And, just when you'd expect a thrill-ride chase to begin when we are down to our final victim, again the pace seems to lag, and then the next thing you know, it's over.

And, there are some truly bad edits toward the end. In one scene, our heroine is caught and trapped, and then we see one of the boys whom we thought had left suddenly enter the room. But rather than turn to see the confrontation going on, he just casually WALKS straight through the scene like he's headed off for coffee or something. Emily then easily gets out of the hold the doctor has on her and runs off in his direction. Next shot, the two are running for their lives down some stairs without any conversation as to why he left he behind, or why he came back. It's a very awkward moment that destroys the carefully constructed mood of the chase.

Shortly after, we see have a shot of Emily walking upstairs (again, at a point when she no longer has a reason to be there, and should be hoofing it out the door). This shot is CLEARLY from earlier in the movie, as she is holding a weapon she lost several scene before and her shirt is suddenly clean after she had vomited all over it previously. In the next shot, she is again weaponless and shirt-stained.

But these are minor quibbles - the worst moment is the closing moment of the film, which is so bad and tacked on, it truly has the effect of rendering the entire previous 90 minutes null and void. It smacks of a last minute reshoot. It makes me think again that the writers ran out of energy or interest and just said, "ah, we'll just do this . . . that's good enough." After having enjoyed the rest of the film, I was left shaking my head wondering WHAT IN THE WORLD they were thinking! Unfortunately, a bad ending can really ruin an otherwise good film, and that's the case here.

After so many bad movies in this year's festival, I really wanted this one to be better - and for the most part, it was. But, as it sputters out of gas in the end, I couldn't help but be disappointed. Still, while it will never be remembered as a classic of the genre, it is certainly the most fun you'll have of the 8 films this year.

Really enjoyed Jenette Goldstein's campy performance. Some great lines, lots of gore, twisted humor. Too bad the young performers played it straight.

A somewhat uncommon subgenre of the slasher film is, of course, the "evil hospital" film. I've always been partial to those. "Autopsy" may be the finest example I've seen yet. The setup: a group of college-age kids leaving Mardi Gras get involved in a car accident. An ambulance shows up out of nowhere, with some very unconventional attendants. They talk the kids into coming with them for a checkup at the hospital. The kids get to the extremely creepy Mercy Hospital, a really bossy nurse starts splitting them up, and much merriment, gore and splatter ensues. This flick has SUCH a nasty sense of humor! I repeatedly found myself laughing at things I know I really shouldn't. And talk about gore! Wow! There are a few scenes that are so spectacularly nasty and original that I found myself gasping, giggling, and gagging all at the same time. (Not an easy feat.) It also has a female protagonist who can kick some serious butt--always on the list of my favorite things. If "Hostel" meets "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" sounds like fun to you, do not miss this movie!

Autopsy is probably not the right word for this film. Autopsies are performed on cadavers - i.e., dead people - and the poor patients checking into this hospital are all quite alive when a mad doctor decides to remove their organs. "Vivisection" would be more appropriate, but then Autopsy isn't interested in accuracy.

Autopsy wisely doesn't even bother with character development. A gaggle of foolish friends are returning home from Mardi Gras when they hit somebody with their car. An ambulance arrives, the dazed victim is carted off, and our protagonists are whisked into creepy Mercy Hospital. Considering the circumstances, it's understandable that they didn't ask the EMTs for identification.

They should have, because two of the EMTs are actually ex-convicts (Michael Bowen as Travis and Robert LaSardo as heavily-tattooed Scott, the less insane of the two). A Nurse Ratched-style matron guards the front door (Jenette Goldstein, our very own Private Vasquez from Aliens). Goldstein, who also was John Connor's adopted mom in Terminator 2, teams up again with Robert Patrick as Doctor David Benway. They are on a mission to prolong the life of Benway's bedridden wife, using science. What kind of science? MAD science of course!

What makes Autopsy so effective is its gleeful embrace of every disturbing hospital phobia: fear of infection, the needles, anesthesia not working, spinal taps, stitches popping, blood spilling, doctors with a cold bedside manner, pushy nurses, being anesthetized against your will, unnecessary tests, and not to mention all the healthcare costs! Okay, that last one I made up but you get the idea - anyone watching Autopsy who is afraid of hospitals will be in a fetal position by the end of this film.

Autopsy is body horror at its finest. The victims are all there to die, of course. With no personalities to speak of, we can only feel sympathy through their pain. The movie even has some comedic moments, getting away with jokes it shouldn't only because we're relieved to laugh after so much horror.

Autopsy is as much mood as it is a movie. As such, not all of it makes sense. The victims seem intent on just wandering around the hospital despite the opportunity to flee on several occasions. Things explode that shouldn't, liquids flow that can't, and the victims pretty much follow standard horror-trope stupidity. If you're rooting for people to survive in Autopsy, you will walk away very frustrated.

But if you're here to see blood and guts - and lets face it, the movie is named Autopsy for a reason - then you will get bloods and guts in your face. The ending is a bit tired and the pacing occasionally off, but for the most part Autopsy delivers on its weird and disgusting promise: to show the insides of living people.

I still think it should be called Vivisection though.

Okey, so some friends & I decided to watch a marathon of hospital-based horror movies to celebrate the 3ed anniversary of Grant Morrison's makeover of the Joker from DC comics from a socipathic gun-weilding jester into a psychopathic knife-weilding surgeon.

Autopsy was agreeably a favorite among us, wheres another After Dark Horrorfest movie called Unrest was the low point.

Autopsy is pretty much everything you could want in a hospital-based horror movie. It has crazy people wandering around like zombies, lots of gore, & the teenagers who get picked off one-by-one are easily hatable so you really don't feel sorry for them.

As the cliche of 90% of horror movies goes, the lead actress barely escapes with her life, but enjoyably it has the end twist similar to Hostal 2 & Catacombs where the girl is pushed to breaking point & she completely snaps, becoming the most deadly thing in the movie. Naturally you just can't hate her anymore when she finally develops a back-bone & stands up for herself, making her into a true herione instead of a delicate & cowardly maiden.

The ending made us nostolgic of American McGee's Alice & we gave it a round of applause.

A group of five friends are returning home after visiting New Orleans during Mardi Gras. They have an accident along a deserted highway, hitting a man who wandered out of the woods. By "chance" an ambulance happens by and takes the entire group to a desolate hospital. Now of course, you or I or anyone of rational intelligence would run from this place when they see the creepy orderlies Travis and Scott, or the even creepier head nurse Marian (Jenette Goldstein of "Aliens and "Near Dark"). But this is a horror movie and common sense is typically tossed out the window so one can enjoy the ride.

By common sense, I mean that one should refrain from getting up and exploring the near empty hospital on their own. I've been in lots of hospitals, often in the middle of the night and I've never had the urge to get up and wander the halls. Nurse Marian's happy Southern charm isn't nearly enough to neutralize what we know immediately is a sinister motive and her happy countenance soon turns to anger as she chastises the kids for not waiting their turn in the lobby.

Their "turn" is their appointment with the man behind the hospital, Dr. David Benway (Patrick) and his easygoing bedside manner almost fools you into thinking he might not be so bad. Benway, however is conducting some very "Dr. Frankenstein" like experiments for reasons which will be revealed soon enough.

As usual in these films we have a female heroine. Here it is Emily (Lowndes) who scours the hospital looking for her boyfriend, Bobby, the first patient of Dr. Benway's. Emily discovers the twisted experiments performed by the sadistic staff and is in the fight for her life to survive.

From a technical standpoint, Autopsy is well made. The setting of the aged hospital with its old-fashioned dial phones and 1950s styling adds atmosphere to the film. Fans of gore will not be disappointed as the violence is extremely graphic and there are body parts aplenty strewn across the screen, not to mention intestines.

The performances are a mixed bag...Patrick, Goldstein, and the two cruel orderlies revel in their roles while the victims are exceedingly dull stereotypes and even Lowndes isn't very fun to watch given the choice heroine's role.

Autopsy is predictable but that's almost a given in films of this type. The setting is great and the villains play their roles to the hilt making this a passable entry into this year's After Dark Horrorfest series.

"Autopsy" is exactly what it is supposed to be a gross out slasher flick that delivers not only great gore effects but an off the chain Heroine "Jessica Lowndes" who is not only beautiful but BAD A**..
Picture Hostel in a Hospital with allot more gore and some cheese but in a oh so good way..it delivers on every level a mindless slasher should deliver and you don't have to worry the about"omg what if the ending isn't clever enough factor"..It is what it is.
I also LOVE the character of Jude played by Ross McCall of the Stars series "Crash"..He gets his pick of pharmaceuticals chooses the wrong one and takes an unwanted hallucinogenic trip and that's the last thing you want to do when your in an abandoned hospital filled with people chasing you with sharp objects plus it has one of the coolest ways to get rid of
"an unwanted naked man on you"scenes ever.. The dude who played Buck in Kill Bill Vol 1"Michael Bowden has a great role in this as well.

THIS ALSO SUCK I WAS LOOKING FOR REAL AUTOPSY VIDEOS THAT SHOW THE REAL THING JUST A WAST OF MY MONEY IT ALSO WANT IN THE TRASH................

This is Probbably One Of the Most Disturbing Movies, I Have Ever Seen. Besides Grimm Love, Of Course!. The Whole Story, is about these teenagers, Get in a Car Accident, After a Night of Partying, and an Ambualnce Comes & Picks Them Up, and Takes Them to This Old Hospital, Which, Isn't Really A Public Hospital. The Workers Are Evil, and it all goes UpHill fom There, So Check It Out! You Have Every thing in this movie, A Hillbilly Nurse/Recepcionist, An Evil Doctor, Glass in Stomache, Loads Of Guts & Blood, Brainless Blondes, (Literally!&& Moree!! If you have a weak stomache, DONT Watch it!