"Autopsy"

Movie Reviewed Today: Autopsy

Genre: Independent / Horror

Starring: Jessica Lowndes
Robert Patrick
Michael Bowen, Robert LaSardo

Director: Adam Gierasch


After a night of partying at what appears to be Mardi Gras, five friends are involved in a collision with a pedestrian on a quiet secluded road. A mysterious ambulance shows up to collect the pedestrian, and the five are also offered a ride to the hospital to be checked for injuries. They find that the hospital is mostly abandoned, save for a nurse, the two orderlies (Bowen and LaSardo), a doctor (Patrick), and a multitude of strange patients. As the 5 are separated, Emily (Lowndes) notices something is wrong and begins a search for her boyfriend.

First of all, I don't know why but I love the way the opening credits are done. They manage to do three things: set up a back story, credit the cast & crew, and be entertaining. Definitely a good first impression. However, know that the opening is the only back story you are going to get. The credits end with the sound of a car crashing, then the cast gets swept up into the ambulance and the rest of the movie takes place in the hospital.

The cast, for the most part, was pretty awesome. Jessica Lowndes should really be in every movie ever, Robert Patrick is great as always (I think it's just the way he talks that makes him incapable of bad acting), Bowen & LaSardo are amazing as the sinister "orderlies," and that nurse is definitely a character you love to hate for multiple reasons. The rest of the cast play their parts alright, but those five take up most of the screen time.

Be prepared, this film is a gory one (as if the title "Autopsy" didn't let you know that already). There are buckets of blood, a ton of insides coming to the outside, etc. Unlike most horror female leads, Lownes gets BEAT UP a lot and even tortured in one scene by Michael Bowen, though the tables eventually inevitably turn. Movies usually don't bother me, but I definitely felt a little weak at times.

The film creates a pretty eerie atmosphere of a (mostly) abandoned hospital. The braindead patients wandering around are almost like ghouls, though they are mostly harmless, save for one scene. Being that it is a hospital, some of the scenery is repetitive. Some hallways and staircases are basically mirror images of each other: one scene Emily will be running up stairs that curve to the right, and later she will run up what appears to be the same stairs, only they curve to the left. There aren't a ton of "atmospheric" shots of the hallways though, so the repetition is easy to forget.

I did kind of have a problem with the ending...it was pretty unsatisfying. It's one of those "omg, what happens next?" endings, which I like when they are pulled off well. Unfortunately I felt that this one was a little cheesy and a bit of a let down.

Final Score - 7.5/10