Coroner’s Report: Pathology (31 Days of Horror)

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 3, 2008

Weakly dumped into only 46 theaters back in April, I decided to play catch up on the mostly ignored flick Pathology which stars Heroes heart throb Milo Ventimiglia. There have been a lot of attempts at making doctors, surgeons, and other such people who are supposed to hold life very dearly come off as scary, violent, and insane. Truthfully, somewhere, some probably are. But most often, the films fall flat and come off as dull or at best make you rethink your HMO policy. Surprisingly, Pathology managed to be more entertaining than the rest of the crop and ended up not being all that bad.

This medical thriller follows a group of students in the forensic pathology course who are all already hotshot Doctors, despite their young ages. They’re composed of an eclectic group of medical school badasses, which is kind of funny. It’s a real microcosm view of things, with your alpha dog, your slut, your lesbian tendencies girl, the bully, and the shy new guy, all wrapped up in blood and scalpels. Interesting. Things start getting out of control when Dr. Grey (Milo) begins to participate in “The Game” lead by rival Doctor Jake Gallo (newly added to House cast Michael Weston) in which the students murder someone and the others have to figure out the cause of death and how it was done. When Grey wants out, clearly things aren’t going to go smoothly.

Kills

If you counted all the dead bodies, the count would be sky high. Even only counting the murders we get to see happen, or that are caused by a character in the current timeline though offscreen, we get a very respectable 14 or so. Now, not all the kills are great and a few are in sort of a montage type thing, but hey, the bodies hit the floor.

Ills

If you don’t like cadavers or bodies or their medical afterlife, this isn’t the film for you. Most of the murders are tame compared to what’s happening on the operating tables. If you respect the dead, you might not like seeing the effective special effects bodies being slapped and pushed around and made into puppets. Rib cages are cut and split, hearts and brains exposed and removed, even the lower intestine is accidentally cut, spraying watery feces everywhere. As for the kills, there is a needle in the ear, some after-the-fact wounds on a body, some burns, frozen nitrogen shoved down a throat, and a live autopsy.

Lust

Alyssa Milano gets her boob felt for awhile and wears a sheer top, then we see some dead boobs a few times, some hot girls kissing each other, which is always appreciated, and then some more boobs. Towards the end of the film there is actually a lot of sex, featuring a lot of boob and a heaping serving of Milo’s ass for the ladies. Also, they do the deed in the morgue, near bodies, and murder turns them all on.

Learning

Forensic pathologists are all, without exception, horrible people with no respect for the dead. Also, sex in a morgue is hot. Don’t donate your body to science.

Review

Like I mentioned above, it is kind of strange and somewhat humorous to see these little rich med students play hardass and act out an entire social scene on their own. That aside, the film is entertaining and could make a lot of people squirm with the depictions of autopsies and just cracking into bodies like peanut shells. The movie looks fantastic and the production values are through the roof and the acting is strong. I’m a bit dumbfounded and why this was rushed so quickly through theaters in so few markets. The weak point comes at the climax, which suddenly feels rushed and then pulls the much loathed “double ending” where the movie continues for another 15 minutes after you thought it was done. However, what follows is pretty entertaining and unexpected, but even this second ending feels rushed again.

An enjoyable thrill ride with some awesome practical effects and a lot of freaky sex (the best kind) near corpses, Pathology is worth a look, though the end result is somewhat lacking almost entirely due to the fumbled pacing of the climax.

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