Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6334 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-08-18
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Synopsis
The grisly and debauched film PATHOLOGY is a juiced-up medical thriller that plays like FLATLINERS with a mean streak and a broken moral compass. Writers Mark Nelvedine and Brian Taylor have created a premise allowing for CSI-like forensics along with heaps of sex and violence, truly making the most of the film's R-rating. A high-end exploitation film with good performances, PATHOLOGY is strong enough for horror fans and should go down smoothly for non-squeamish viewers with a taste for the dark side.


Gifted med student Ted Grey (Milo Ventimiglia, HEROES) arrives at a major Washington, D.C., as an intern, where he is met with suspicion and resentment by the tightly knit group of fellow young pathologists-in-training. Soon, though, Ted is accepted into their circle---where they each take turns committing a murder so that the others may prove their mettle by figuring out the cause of death and celebrate with drug-fuelled orgies among the dead bodies in the hospital. Things change for Ted, though, when his law student fiancée, Gwen (Alyssa Milano), moves to the city and helps to scare him straight. Soon, crazed Wallace Stevens-quoting leader Jake Gallo (Michael Weston) turns on Ted, putting both Ted's and Gwen's lives in serious jeopardy. The film opens with the Hippocratic Oath, and it's easy to tell that PATHOLOGY is going to show us doctors behaving badly, and the film is in fact almost gleefully immoral, with an attractive young cast that engages in almost any kind of forbidden behaviour one can imagine. Showing that he isn't afraid to take on risky roles, Ventimiglia may surprise his young fans. Director Marc Schoelermann's taste for realism extends to several convincing corpses dissected in close-up, and could prove too much for some viewers, but for others this is the kind of film for which unrated releases were invented.

Customer Reviews

Twisted, screwed up and utterly disturbing...

...Just the way I like 'em!

Ted Grey is a super-intelligent med student who becomes entangled in a deadly game of 'Who can commit the perfect murder?', after joining a high-class New York pathology unit and mixing with all the wrong people. But wait... What sounds like a mouthful of silly clichés somehow turns into a cool and accomplished little thriller that flies along at a frantic pace.

Horror fans have been drowning in a sea of low-budget 'torture-porn' for quite some time now; there's been Saw, Hostel, Funny Games, The Hills Have Eyes... the list is endless. I'm guessing that Pathology was almost ignored on its release because people just expected it to be more of the same. But actually, a superb plot, a great script, a fantastic special-effects team and loads of deeply disturbing scenes add up to one of the most surprising and original films of the year.

I'm not saying that it's the next Saw, but if you're a gore fan and fancy something a bit different, make Pathology your next fix.

A GOOD THRILLER
Pathology, a slow-burning, atmospheric, slickly-filmed thriller, is the second most original movie of the year, second only to Cloverfield. However, Pathology is the better of the two films simply because of its terrifying subject matter and the very dark humor that is sometimes over-the-top. Milo Ventimiglia, Alyssa Milano, and Michael Weston are the front-runners in this horror/thriller, expertly directed by Marc Schoelermann and written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the writing team behind the hugely underrated Crank.

Harvard Medical School graduate Dr. Ted Grey (Milo Ventimiglia) arrives at one of the nations most prestigious Pathology programs and is quickly noticed by the program's privileged and elite band of pathology interns who invite him into their crowd. It is also here where he is introduced to Dr. Jake Gallo (Michael Weston), who brings him to a secluded wing, where he and four other indulge in there after-hours, extra-curricular activities...finding ways to commit the perfect murder. As Ted's life spirals out of control, he has to worry about the job as well as his engagement to Gwen (Alyssa Milano).

The acting is top-notch and 100% believable, helped along nicely by the layered script with witty and realistic dialogue. On the surface, Pathology may appear to be a fun, quick, and forgettable popcorn flick, but it has a very subtle and deep message that is hard-hitting and relevant, especially in today's chaos-riddled times. My favorite performance of the cast was obviously Milo Ventimiglia, who completely stole the show every single time he was on screen. His boyishly good looks only serve to strengthen his charisma and delivery of each line. He makes Dr. Grey feel like a real person with such a realistic performance. And of course this is without mentioning the sensational sex scenes, riddled with numerous shots of Ventimiglia's gorgeous and tan behind thrusting in and out. It took courage to film such scenes, and I applaud him for such a spectacular performance. He carries the entire movie on his shoulders, and he has proved without a shadow of a doubt that he really has what it takes to be a great leading man. I hope he gets more roles that are as layered and difficult as this one. His last film, Dirty Deeds, was a fun guilty pleasure, but it was almost instantly forgettable and the writing was very faulty. He was hilarious and memorable as Bo, the gay jock, in Wes Craven's 2005 werewolf romp, Cursed. He has apparently stepped up his game since Heroes, and I can't wait to see what other films he has on his slate. Alyssa Milano, who is most widely known for her role in Charmed, does a great job here, although she gets a very minimal amount of screen time. Michael Weston, who I loved as the creepy car-jacker in Six Feet Under, was great in his role as Jake Gallo. Throughout the course of the movie, he basically goes completely psycho and Weston pulled it off beautifully. He hasn't been in many mainstream hits, and it's almost a shame that more people haven't seen this incredibly underrated actor.

The directing was slick and intriguing, never getting repetitive, but always keeping it interesting. All of these actors give off some of their best performances, and it's strange because a lot of them are TV actors. This further strengthens the argument that the quality of TV shows has greatly increased since the 2000's, with people who can actually act taking the main roles.

Pathology was one of the best thrillers I've ever seen and it's well worth your time if you're a lover of the horror genre or just plain interested in medical proceedings. There is a huge level of realism, and even the gore looked very real. This is a movie not to be missed. Seek it out in its limited theatrical release, or check it out when it hits DVD shelves! You won't be disappointed.

Crass
Oh, dear. We've been her before. Shallow characterisation, dialogue that is frankly laughable and a storyline that you can see panning out across a flat barren desert from a million miles away; the words 'dead meat' tattooed across the usual characters forheads. Crass Hollywood at its worst. They are trying to make us believe thay have something to say about a 'broken moral compass', when all we really need to know is that this film is empty of ideas, human feeling and any kind of cinematic aesthetic. A car crash of a film.