Autopsy: A Love Story

Lonely, love-hungry mortuary attendant, Charlie Bickle (John Scott Mills) is trapped in a dead-end relationship, spending his long dour days illegally harvesting organs for his vastly corrupt boss, Dr. Dale Brodsky (Joe Estevez). He 'aint no average working stiff, while shy, introverted and awkward in public, Charlie positively comes alive with the dead! Amusingly bizarre, sordidly sardonic, 'Autopsy: A Love Story' is arguably one of the more eccentric terror titles disgorged by the fiendishly independent gore-mongers at Brain Damage Films. A low budget necromantic comedy horror treat about the tacky travails of an all American boy and his dead girl next door! Livid with grisly gallows humour, there's a wealth of ice-cool passion and sweet moments of tender open-hearted romance in, Guy Crawford's mirthfully macabre, morgue-set love affair!

On a day seemingly like any other, Charlie fatefully meets the girl of his screams, Jane Doe, pale, beautiful, serene, ceaselessly obliging, and quite dead, and on this auspicious day, Charlie demonstratively puts pay to the notion that he couldn't get laid in a morgue! Not for all tastes, Autopsy A Love Story is an amusingly warped admixture of John Waters, H. G Lewis, and Paul Bartel, a blackly funny text enlivened by a choice number of delicious lapses into bad taste! Crawford's morbid DTV melodrama is blessed with a splendidly game cast of actors, with surprisingly nuenced performances from scar-crossed lovers, John Scott Mills and, Dina Osmussen, and a juicily unfiltered turn by B-Movie legend, Joe Estevez. Funnier than Alien Autopsy, more romantic than Psychos in Love, Autopsy: A Love Story grimly opens up a darker vein of cold blooded comedy.

My friend and I saw the summary for this movie and found it online. We watched it simply because it seemed like the most peculiar plot ever. As it turns out, we were right. The plot was easy enough to follow, in fact at times too easy. They practically screamed the back story, in extreme detail. Another problem I found was how annoying the one character was. Not only did she crave constant contact with the main character, she was selfish and whiny. I didn't like her at all.

On the upside, though, this movie is good for a laugh--especially the makeup and interaction with the dead girl. I managed to find it for two bucks online, so for me it was worth watching it.

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

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.

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....