Pathology
You do not want to end up in a morgue - especially after seeing the horror flick "Pathology," in which a pack of arrogant D.C. teaching-hospital residents engage in a grisly game of competitive forensics. The sick mortuary humor is nothing new, and these days we get organs and gore aplenty in TV shows like "CSI" and "House." But this version of Stump the Docs adds a mordant twist: Bored with the humdrum corpses on hand, the young whizzes start creating their own, employing ever more ingenious methodology.
It takes straight-arrow newcomer Ted Grey (Milo Ventimiglia) only a day to crack the initially snotty inner circle. An invitation to share a beer from one of them leads to what appears to be a playful if macabre proposition: "If you could kill anyone and get away with it, who would you kill?"
Surprising his new colleagues with his sangfroid ("It's in our nature to kill"), Grey is invited to observe - and soon is implicated in - their after-hours experimentation. The ringleader, Dr. Jake Gallo (Michael Weston, a cuddly looking arch-villain in the Tim Roth mold), leads Grey on a drunken walk on the wild side, and sure enough, the next body on the slab looks familiar.
Even squeamish viewers are apt to be captivated by the tight, credible scripting; these 20-somethings talk and behave like today's irony-clad young sophisticates. And whatever your opinion of the subject matter, you can't fault the filmmaking.
Disparate palettes lend Grey's dalliances with his unsuspecting lawyer fiancee (Alyssa Milano) a golden glow - you can practically feel the warmth emanating from their crumpled sheets - whereas a chicly minimalist steel-gray pallor cloaks the abandoned amphitheatre where the medicos engage in their hideous-kinky orgies. Near-subliminal cross-cuts between the two scenes lend instant insight into Grey's pathologically divided nature, as does a score that veers from crazed neo-punk to measured classicism.
Grey's susceptibility to post-mortem sadism, if it can be called that, and selective execution (the gang purports to take out only certifiable scum) is never fully explained, beyond a surfeit of ambition, compounded by a blood-slippery slope. The plot moves too swiftly for in-depth examination, and besides, as Grey himself notes, "Who needs motive?" Even so, his progression from good guy to bad and back again - relatively speaking - is thoroughly believable.
Disrespectful treatment of dead bodies being one of the most ancient taboos throughout civilization, it's easy to see why this highly sexualized slash-'em-up - which really ought to be rated "NC-17" - was released to the public without benefit of press previews. Often that's the sign of a stinker, but here the stratagem would seem to be an attempt to turn a shocker into a sleeper, outpacing any anticipated outcry.
Sandy MacDonald can be reached at sandy@sandymacdonald.com.
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