Autopsy (2008) Review #1

Directed by Adam Gierasch
Written by Adam Geirasch, Jace Anderson, E.L. Katz
Featuring Robert Patrick, Jessica Lowndes, Michael Bowen, Jenette Goldstein, Robert LaSardo, Ashley Schneider
2008, www.Horrorfestonline.com

Now, I actually know the people who wrote this film, Adam and Jace. I like them. Especially Jace. But I really don't like their film. At all. From the bad sets, the really awful nurse uniform, the cheesy, never-fully-explained plot, to the lack of cohesive narrative and any real scares (or actual autopsies of any kind) "“ I just didn't like it. Autopsy is part of the Horrorfest After Dark 8 Films to Die For, out on DVD March 31st, and it seems like each year the films get worse and worse. Autopsy is the directorial debut from Adam Geirasch, who just wrapped a remake of Night of the Demons starring Tiffany Shepis and Bobby Sue Hall (For After Dark Horrorfest IV, next year, mayhaps?). Jace Anderson, his writing partner, and he, wrote the scripts for Tobe Hooper's Mortuary and The Toolbox Murders remake and co-wrote Mother of Tears with Dario Argento. But their exposure to magnificence didn't seem to rub off on Autopsy, which they co-wrote with sexy horror filmmaker Evan Katz (Homesick)...

Jessica Lowndes (the new, awful 90210) is Emily, a really hot chick on vacation with her hot friend Clare (Ashley Schneider), her boyfriend Bobby (Ross Kohn), her friend's ex boyfriend Jude (Ross McCall), and her friend's new Russian boyfriend (Arcadiy Golubovich, one of the film's rich Russian producers who also paid for Night of the Demons). They party a little too hard and end up crashing their car onto a lonely strip of road when they almost run into a wandering mental patient. When an uncalled ambulance shows up moments later to fetch the injured patient, they all hop in the back for a ride to the hospital to make sure no one is seriously injured. At the hospital, creepy nurse Marian (Jenette Goldstein from Aliens, Near Dark) and Dr. Benway (the awesome Robert Patrick from The Faculty and Decoy) freak the kids out a bit, and Bobby is taken in for examination because of a shard of glass sticking out of his abdomen. Then, like the kids, you wait. They wait. We wait. They get an uneasy feeling about the nurse and her old-fashioned phone and uniform, and the creepy orderlies running around looking like criminal types. We get semi-bored and annoyed with how predictable the film is.

Dr. Benway (Robert Patrick) and Girl (played by Jessice Lowndes)

Emily begins to get nervous, and starts wandering around the hospital by herself, looking for Bobby. Jude gets sick of watching Clare and Andrey such face in the waiting room, so he wanders off to get high with Scott the orderly (played by a very fun Robert Lasardo). Patients with wan and bloody faces parade around the otherwise deserted hallways in standard 'help me' mode, somewhere between pitiful and frightening. Of course, when nurse Marian and Dr. Benway find out that their newest additions are aware that something is 'amiss', they whip out the drills and start picking them off one by one.

Jessice Lowndes being tortured

In case you hadn't guessed it, this grisly hospital is actually an abandoned mental hospital and Dr. Benway is conducting crude and horrific experiments to try to extend the life of his dying wife. That's about all the explanation you get. The rest of the film is hack and slash, mediocre suspense, and some extraordinarily unnecessary visuals that precede the cliché (and unfulfilling) ending. There's something just a little bit; unconvincing about Geirasch's work as a director. Maybe if the film had been played for some gags instead of formulaic sci-fi channel Saturday night special-ness, there may have been something more fun about it. If the death scenes had been filmed more like the action sequences they should have been and less like a stage play, they would have been far more terrifying. But Geirasch's lack of focus on his close-ups seriously takes away from the enjoyment of the gruesome elements.

Jeanette Goldstein as Nurse Marian

The characters are so tired (5 kids out for a good time) and their personalities so standard (The good girl, the slutty girl, the good boyfriend, the bad boyfriend) that I'm seriously disappointed. We're never given a motivation for why nurse Marian helps Dr. Benway with his illegal experiments; we have no idea how in the hell Dr. Benway's crazy fluid-pilfering machine works on his victims; we never learn who in the hell is paying the light bill for the abandoned mental hospital or why the policeman who showed up for the 911 call showed up alone and no one ever came looking for him once he disappeared; its just not okay to leave logic out of your plot (like, how no one is wearing a jacket even though its February in Louisiana. Granted, there'd be no snow, but it isn't tank-top weather. I know it was shot on a soundstage, but these kinds of details will be noticed by assholes like me)

Shit, is that body parts on that cart? yes. yes it is.

Autopsy isn't impressive. Its fun, in a banal way, but nothing special in the pantheon of horror movies. The predictable plot could have been fun if it had only been shot with more motion and enthusiasm, but as it is, it seems like same-old same-old abandoned mental hospital/crazy doctor/medical experiments that we've seen before in Anatomy, Boo, Room 6, and the comparable Sawbones.