Movie: Autopsy (1975)
Directed by Armando Crispino
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL
Plot:
Rome seems to be beset by a series of suicides, and a sexually hung-up forensic pathologist is having trouble processing it all. Of course, not everything is as it appears. Hilarity ensues.
Reaction:
Plotwise, this was pretty much your standard giallo. There are some killings. There's some blackmail. And there are many red herrings to keep you on your heels as you try to figure out what's going on and who the killer is. There were no masks on the killer to add mystery and excitement, but there were plenty of odd grotesque touches thrown into make up for it.
Sadly, though, the grotesque touches seemed disjointed from the rest of the movie, making it seem like an odd grafting job. The weird hallucinations at the beginning? They were completely unnecessary. The drinking of the bidet water? Gratuitous. And the suicides that start things off? Unless you're going to say they're needed to put all the fake suicides in context, they serve no real purpose.
Another thing that annoyed me was the way movie kept cutting to a stylishly effects-laden shot of solar flare activity. I guess that kind of makes sense, since the Italian title of the movies translates as "Sunspots." But that doesn't really make any sense.
But, while this movie had some weaknesses, it wasn't a total loss. The plot was kind of interesting, though it lacked a sense of tension. And the score, by Ennio Morricone was really good.
Ratings:
Me: 6.8
Christina: 6.8
Dave: 9.2-9.3
Ethan: 4
Joe: 9.5
Sean: 2 out of 4
That oft-repeated (and annoying for you) “stylishly effects-laden shot of solar flare activity”, was very likely a “thing” Italian filmmakers did at the time.
ReplyDeleteJust consider the horrible and difficult-to-watch trailer for the great Mario Bava’s “Bay of Blood” (after Dario Argento’s “Tenebrae”, my favorite Giallo of all time), which is found elsewhere on your Blog. A film SO GREAT should not have such an awful trailer!
Other Giallo trailers we’ve seen did this as well. I think it was just something they liked to play with – or their audience had an unfathomably positive response to. Why obscure your best bits behind bursts or explosions of animated colors and “reverse/negatives” (if that’s a term)? I don’t get it, and never have!
“Autopsy’s” worst sin was its complete and total lack of suspense! That’s as wrong for a Giallo as it would be to make a Western with no horses or guns, or a porn film with no sex!
Yeah, it may have been a thing for the directors to do. But it was an annoying thing for me to watch.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in class, it reminded me of the worst of Space 1999.