Milo Ventmiglia stars as Dr. Ted Grey, a brilliant graduate of Harvard Medical School who, as the story opens, bids goodbye to his fiancée Gwen Williamson (Alyssa Milano) and travels to Los Angeles to join one of the nation’s most prestigious pathology programs. There, he gets involved in a deadly (and bloody) game devised by his colleagues. Led by the exuberant and downright pathological Jake Gallo (Michael Weston), the students take turns committing murders, their superiors none the wiser. Each student challenges the others to solve the crimes using their autopsy skills.
All of the characters in this film are seriously creepy. Juliette (Lauren Lee Smith), Griffin (Johnny Whitworth), and Catherine (Mei Melancon) dissect bodies in front of the rest of their colleagues with an almost erotic sense of enjoyment. A group of doctors in the room and none of them can spot that these people have some serious, and obvious, psychological issues? As characters, each of them is bland and uninteresting; and as if to hammer home the point about just how deplorable these individuals are, they smoke crack, drive drunk and have sex with each other.
Despite the dull characters, Pathology actually had a shot at being a pretty good film for horror aficionados–it has the blood, gore and the core of a story the genre requires. The problem is that Ted is to boring to care about. He’s dull and emotionless, so most viewers will find it hard to get invested in what happens to him. So when his fellow students start to turn on him… Aside from his personality, Ted is quick to join in his fellow student’s game ostensibly to have sex with Juliette; so much for that fiancé at home, huh?
Also, horror movies and moral lessons don’t usually mix well. Pathology seems to be trying to make a point about power and the value of human life, but that theme isn’t fully developed and gets lost in all the blood and gore. In fact, Pathology has so much blood in it; some viewers may find themselves desensitized to it before the film is over. The filmmakers seemed to feel that showing autopsy after autopsy would creep viewers out, but some like me, might find the technique had the opposite effect.
Pathology isn’t the worst horror/thriller I’ve ever seen, but it’s not very good either. Marc Schoelermann and the rest of his crew took the easy way out by using lots of blood and gore to create chills, rather than come up with an original concept.
Fox sent a screener DVD for this review, so I don’t feel I can fairly comment on the video quality. Consumers will receive a film that has been letterboxed at 2.40:1 and the transfer is enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. The DVD has a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.
Pathology does contain some special features:
• Audio commentary by director Marc Scholermann and writers/producers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
• Creating the Perfect Murder featurette
• The Cause of Death – A Conversation with Pathologist Craig Harvey featurette
• “Unintended Consequences” music video by Legion of Doom F/ Triune
• Extended autopsy scene
• Trailers
