Milo Ventimiglia- Ted Grey
Michael Weston- Jake Gallo
Alyssa Milano- Gwen Williamson
Lauren Lee Smith- Juliette Bath
Johnny Whitworth- Griffin Cavenaugh
Mei Melancon- Catherine Ivy
Keir O'Donnell- Ben Stravinsky
Dan Callahan- Chip Bentwood
John de Lancie- Dr. Quentin Morris
Larry Drake- Fat Bastard
Directed by Marc Schoelermann
Screenplay by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Distributed by Lakeshore Entertainment and MGM
Rated R for disturbing and perverse behavior throughout, including violence, gruesome images, strong sexual content, nudity, drug use and language
Runtime- 93 minutes
Website: http://www.enterpathologylab.com/
On the one hand, I want to recommend the Marc Schoelermann directed horror thriller "Pathology" because it's a movie that doesn't flinch away from either the general nastiness of its setting (a medical school autopsy class) or of its characters. But, on the other hand, it's hard to recommend the flick because the story, like too many of its recent horror movie bretheren, features a lack of motivation for its main character. In other words, after about a half hour, you have absolutely no understanding as to why the protagonist finds himself in the situation he finds himself in.
The flick stars Milo Ventimiglia as Ted Grey, a brilliant young doctor just back from a stint as a volunteer in Africa, getting ready for his stint in studying pathology at the Metropolitan University Medical Center. Grey's reputation apparently preceeds him, as he and his family are well known to the head of the pathology department, Dr. Quentin Morris (John de Lancie). And as soon as Grey steps foot in the lab he is despised by Dr. Jake Gallo (Michael Weston) and the others (well, the four other young doctors who seem to hang out all of the time with Gallo. They are Juliette Bath, as played by Lauren Lee Smith, Griffin Cavenaugh, as played by Johnny Whitworth, Catherine Ivy, as played by Mei Melancon, and Chip Bentwood, as played by Dan Callahan). Grey is a better doctor than they are, and he has a different attitude about the job (Gallo and his group are often seen joking around the bodies in the lab, while Grey is more serious).
For some reason, one night Grey goes out with Gallo and his clique to a bar to unwind. While sitting around drinking heavily the clique asks its members "If you could kill anyone and if you could get away with it, who would you kill?" Gallo and the clique list the people they'd like to see done in, but Grey objects to the whole thing. He tells them all they're full of crap and that, if he wanted to kill someone, because he's a human being, he'd kill anyone. That's what humans do (he apparently learned that while in Africa). This then leads for some reason to Grey and Gallo getting super drunk, Gallo taking Grey to a "bad" neighborhood to have sex with a prostitute (both a very gross scene and a very funny scene when you find out what's really going on). The next day, Grey wakes up with no memory of what happened the previous night, but a sneaking suspicion that something "bad" happened.
And, yeah, something bad happened. Something really, really bad. And it's this bad thing that brings Grey into Gallo's circle of friends and the game that they play in the basement of the university. One of the group kills someone, brings the body to the basement, and then the others try to figure out how he or she did it. Grey doesn't want to participate, but he feels as though he has no choice. Gallo has something on him. So, the question then becomes, how far is Grey going to go with this? Is he going to actually, knowingly participate in the game?
The thing I don't understand (and this is the motivation issue I referred to earlier) is why Grey decided to stay with Gallo after he told Gallo and his crew they were full of it. Grey never once shows any want, wish, need, or desire to hang out with these people, and you'd think that after having to work all day with them in the lab he'd just stay in his apartment or get a dog or videochat with his wealthy girlfriend Gwen, as played by Alyssa "yummy" Milano. So, again, why does he decide to hang out with Gallo at all? This is either a glaring screenplay error that everyone involved just decided not to fix or couldn't figure out how to fix and just decided to ignore or there's footage explaining this that was cut because it didn't look right. Either way, it's a big problem that hinders the rest of the movie because it ends up looking like Grey getting involved deeper with the group just had to happen because, well, it just had to. There's just no real progression from upstanding young doctor to evil scumbag, which is what I assume the movie is going for. It just happens.
At least the cast is decent. Milo Ventimiglia is fine as the somewhat sensitive, aloof, intellectual superior young doctor Ted Grey. He's got enough natural charisma to make the movie watchable (although he can't overcome the plot issue and make you really, really care about him. His actions make no sense). Michael Weston is superb as the psychopathic Dr. Jake Gallo. He's totally believable as the ringleader of the group of murdering doctors. There's no question that the people in the group would follow him. Lauren Lee Smith is disturbing as Juliette Bath. She'll do anything with anyone (she bats for both teams and loves it when you slice her tongue and then kiss her) and she has absolutely no problem killing, well, anyone. Same goes for Mei Melancon's Catherine Ivy. Johnny Whitworth plays Griffin Cavanaugh like a guy you'd want to punch in the face and then disembowel if you met him in an elevator. You wouldn't have to say a word to him, you'd just take one look at him and break out the brass knuckles and the Swiss Army knife. And Dan Callahan is just a douchebag as Chip Bentwood. Keir O'Donnell is great as the nerdy doctor Ben Stravinsky (the flick probably would have been more interesting if Stravinsky had been the guy brought into the group, but then again there's no way you could make the audience believe that Stravinsky could have Alyssa Milano as his girlfriend). John de Lancie is a little weird as the lead lab doctor Quentin Morris, mostly due to his voice. It sounds like he's being dubbed by someone else.
And then there's Alyssa Milano, who basically plays the sweet, cute, and smart, well to do girlfriend of the hero. She doesn't get to do much beyond look pretty and get felt up, but, for the flaming heterosexual men in the audience, you're likely not to mind so much. You will likely wonder why, though, she's even in this movie. She's not the star, or the hero, she's just in it. Again, why? I'm not complaining, I'm just curious.
And it was pretty cool to see Larry Drake, Dr. Giggles hisself, as one of the murder victims, named "Fat Bastard" in the credits. I'd imagine that Drake's presence is an inside joke to horror fans the world over. I mean, yeah, Drake probably needs the work, but why appear in this movie, a movie about killer doctors?
Exactly.
The gore effects in this flick are amazing. You get to "see" everything, especially in the autopsy scenes. The gore, though, is not as disturbing as the people doing the autopsies. There's no reverance for the dead on display here. It doesn't matter if the body on the slab is someone's grandmother or father or young son. It's just a hunk of matter that has to be cut open. And it's all shot and staged very matter of factly. It's brilliant in a way. And there's one scene involving a full on autopsy that's either the greatest dead body dummy in movie history or some of the best dead body playing/gore effects appliance wearing in movie history. It's a sequence that's destined to be loaded onto youtube as soon as the movie hits DVD.
I just wish the movie was, as a whole, as strong as the effects sequences. I just wish Grey's actions made sense.
So what do we have here? Gratuitous hand held home video footage of pathology students playing with dead bodies and body parts like they're doing a puppet show, gratuitous the Hippocratic Oath, gratuitous Alyssa Milano, gratuitous feeling up and kissing Alyssa Milano, erect nipples, a house that looks Wayne Manor from the "Batman" TV show, gratuitous autopsies, bolt cutters used to crack ribs, nasty photos of murder victims, John de Lanice saying "chop chop," Kim Richards, gratuitous cutting the nerves on the back of the head of a dead body that still moves from time to time, eating breakfast while looking at autopsy photos, holding a brain, barfing into a dead body, a shit geiser, dart playing, a hip and edgy young doctor bar, gratuitous drinking heavily, gratuitous driving fast, drinking, and smoking, a black guy, an old black prostitute, more barfing, up close drinking water from a bottle, gratuitous shelf open air shelf structure stacked with dead bodies, gratuitous taking off a dead man's fake leg, a raving derelict, gratuitous old woman passing out on a bus, jamming a wallet in a guy's mouth so he won't scream, gratuitous pot smoking, hot lesbian action, two eyes in a plastic bag, gratuitous Larry Drake, thigh fondling, inhaling liquid nitrogen, breaking a frozen rubber glove, gratuitous after murder hot sex, tongue cutting and kissing, getting rid of the evidence, gratuitous running around basement with a dead body on a cart and then slamming it into a wall, face spitting, punch to the face, sewing needle to the chest, nipple piercing, going down on Alyssa Milano, gratuitous cocktail party, cussing at a cocktail party, slipping on blood, dead prostitutes, throat slitting, lead pipe to the head, public felatio, exploding autopsy lab with flaming bodies, a great autopsy sequence featuring sucking the liquid out of the eyes, bondage, and a live autopsy.
Best lines: "Go be with your dead people, doctor," "Your hands are so cold," "Here we are, the county morgue," "A bleeding heart? I cut one of those in half this morning," "Look at this skin. It's like cheddar cheese," "One can't discard psychology when formulating a diagnosis," "Death by booger," "Why are we here?," "To the dead!," "The truth is you're all full of shit," "How many? How many do you see?," "One fitty," "You smell like a liquor cabinet," "Seriously, man, get the fuck out of here," "Motherfucker. You are good," "I forgot to mention he likes little girls," "Because you never forget your first fuck," "Could you be any more hot right now?," "Question. Are you playing fair?," "Don't. Fuck. With. Me," "You've been doing a lot of urine work lately," "Nobody owns anybody," "So, I hear you're kicking ass at your residency," "Baby, do I look like a tweaker to you?," "Stravinsky, you little turd," "Has Ted told you about all of the people he's killed?," "You haven't killed any lawyers yet, have you, Ted?," "I fail to see the genius here," "I think it's about time we get rid of that cocksucker," "Doctors, let's have a look inside," "Hi, you remember me from the party?," and "She never really knew you, did she?"
The 411: I really do kind of like "Pathology," I just wish there was some way to reconcile the fact that the main character's actions make no sense. I'm going to suggest that you wait for the DVD to come out to check it out, because while there's lots to recommend, that motivation problem is glaring and distracting. Good gore stuff, though.
