Short Review: 'Autopsy' (2008)

Horror movies about treacherous hospitals tend to be either highly effective (Halloween II, Session 9) or downright dismal (Asylum, Visting Hours). From a filmmaking point of view the setting itself is one of immense opportunity for genuine atmosphere and unsettling scares; everything from the endlessly desolate hallways and suffering patients to the ghoulish gadgetry employed by doctors and nurses serve toward a picture of perpetual anguish and deep sorrow that emanate from the ground floor up. Certainly more moody than a corporate office space.

With Autopsy, writing partners Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson (The Toolbox Murders remake, Mortuary, Mother of Tears) made their foray into directorial territory with a story of madness, murder and morgue space overload that, for the most part, hits all the right petrifying painkillers.

The set-up is simple: five teenagers who, after surviving a car accident with a dying man wedged under their wheel are taken to a seemingly vacant hospital on the outskirts of town. Drastically understaffed and short on resources, the team on call gradually begins attending to the shaken kids one by one, only the treatment they receive proves more deadly than dependable.

Any horror fan possessing even the most rudimentary understanding of the nuts and bolts at work in slasher cinema will no doubt sense a degree of banality to Autopsy’s first half, as the scenario isn’t exactly something unknown to the genre’s last half century. However, to Gierasch and Anderson’s credit they manage to infuse their hospital-from-hell yarn with a twisted and enjoyably demented sensibility more reminiscent of a Tales from the Crypt episode than anything more akin to a conventional stalker pic. Instead of pitting the youngsters against a singular killer in individual one-one-one chase sequences with a quick payoff, the ward’s multiple medical executioners (lead by the always reliable Robert Patrick) cunningly lure their prey under the false pretence of care, only to surprise them with a cure for their pain involving more than the prick of a needle. The ‘spinal tap’ sequence in particular is a perfect example.

Another point the film makes in an effort to stand out above the crowd is its dynamic photographic approach and overall resounding presentation to the look of the hospital itself. Evoking much of the hyper-stylized pop art theatrics of Argento’s Suspiria, cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond employs a unconventional lighting scheme rich with primary colors that aid in providing the morbidity of the environment with a surreal sense of fantasy not often found in films of this ilk, much less within the sterilized surrounds of a real life medical facility. Gorehounds will also revel in the top-notch FX work; the aftermath of one death toward the end of the film is literally transformed into set dressing via the use of the character’s internal organs.

If there’s anything significant that lets Autopsy down it’s the occasionally languid pacing of the script and the films’ propensity to allow its unsuspecting adolescents to entirely loose communication with one another, thus making them virtually apathetic to the fact they’ve become patients in the weirdest hospital on the face of the earth. But hey, if there were no such thing as stupid characters making stupid decisions we wouldn’t have slasher films as we know them.



Dir: Adam Gierasch
Writer: Adam Gierasch, Jace Anderson & E.L Katz
Cast: Jessica Lowndes, Robert Patrick, Michael Bowen, Jenette Goldstein
Country: USA
Run Time: 84mins
Rating: MA15+