Autopsy: A Love Story

Another promising idea sunk by the unwillingness of the creator to let others reel him in. I gave it a nine because I found myself watching the damn thing in spite of the incredibly crappy production values and the unnecessary blah blah. Basically, he creates an intriguing central character, but the actor seems overly aware of the fact that he is being played for humor. Also, too much exposition -- too much background on the living girlfriend -- although the trick of having it revealed as the central character unburdons himself to the dead girlfriend provides a good segue into what is going on. Some of the jokes are brilliant -- but then they repeat themselves over and over and over and over... Again, I gave it a nine because I watched the thing to the end -- despite its glaring faults. Compared to Weekend at Bernie's and other films about stiffs, this one is quite lively. You care about the relationship between the living guy and himself -- and even between himself and the dead girl. It just needs to be made by a real director....

Lonely morgue assistant Charlie Bickle (John Scott Mills) acquires 'healthy' anonymous corpses so that his boss, Dr. Dale Brodsky (Joe Estevez), can harvest their organs for sale on the black market; but when Charlie falls for his latest 'Jane Doe' (Dina Osmussen), he spares her this gruesome fate, instead keeping her body intact (at least until it starts to decay) for tender moments of late night romance.

Twisted, dark and humorous: three words that grace the DVD cover for Autopsy: A Love story. Well I've got three more: dull, cheap, and amateurish. Oh, and here's another three: waste of time. And while I'm at it, have these as well: mind numbing garbage.

Corpse lovin' can make for some seriously deviant cinema, but having read that Autopsy aims for psychological horror rather than visceral vulgarity, the last thing I expected was another Nekromantik or Aftermath; on the other hand, I hadn't reckoned on being bored out of my skull by an hour and a half of inept shot-on-video dreck either. With awful acting, dire direction and a plot that is even more lifeless than its leading lady, Autopsy stinks higher than a three week old stiff.

I have seen Meet the Spartans and some other movies that actually made me depressed for having wasted so many minutes of my life, but I have grown smarter now that I'm older and fast forward to the nudity if it doesn't look like a promising movie. Well fast-forwarded all the way through and NO NUDITY so I'm just like sod this, especially after I saw the low rating it already received on IMDb. From the first five minutes you can tell this was a low-budget film with bad directing thus bad acting. No nudity, no violence, no redeeming qualities except the fact that this is one more movie that I have rated on IMDb and I did borrow this for free from the local library. But you couldn't pay me $10 to sit and watch the whole thing through, or even $20.

The lonely Charlie Bickle (John Scott Mills) works in a morgue owned by the corrupt Dr. Dale Brodsky (Joe Estevez) cremating bodies and lives with his crippled wife Mary (Ginny Harman). Dr. Dale illegally sells body parts before the cremation, bribing dirty policemen. When Charlie meets the suicidal Jane Doe (Dina Osmussen), he falls in love for her and dates the corpse until her twin sister comes to the morgue seeking her missing sister.

"Autopsy: A Love Story" is a very cheap production, actually almost amateurish, that has an intriguing, original and bizarre screenplay that works most of the time and captivates the attention until the last scene, and two good lead actors, John Scott Mills and Dina Osmussen. Unfortunately the histrionic Joe Estevez has another ham performance with his character that is neither dark nor funny. I liked this film because I am fan of weird movies, but I do not recommend it to average viewers that like blockbusters. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Autópsia - Uma História de Amor" ("Autopsy - A Love Story")

I am not opposed to ultra low budget direct to video productions. A couple come to mind ( "Night Feeders" and "Inbred Redneck Alien Abduction") that were somewhat amusing, sort of the "cream of the crap". What we have here is a one joke movie that plays out in the first ten minutes, with no further development. You can ride the fast forward button for the remaining time, miss nothing, and avoid having to listen to Jose Estevez doing a stale Martin Sheen imitation for another 70 minutes. The subject of having a love affair with a corpse was handled far better in "Mortuary Academy", a movie which I highly recommend. - MERK