Bargain Bin

23rd Oct 2009

Rachael Hewi­son spends a pound on Autopsy: A Love Story

Direc­tor: Guy Crawford

Cast: John Scott Mills, Dina Osmussen

Cert: 15

CHARLIE, a gen­tle but slow pathol­o­gist, is sent to col­lect the body of Jane, who has com­mit­ted sui­cide. He imme­di­ately falls in love with her and has to hide her from his greedy boss, Dale, and his sus­pi­cious girl­friend Mary. Jane’s twin sis­ter then comes look­ing for Char­lie, and she has to face the consequences.

At first glance the sto­ry­line for this film is quite dis­turb­ing. How­ever, John Scott Mills was the right man for the job. He por­trays a very inno­cent char­ac­ter, bul­lied by both his girl­friend and his boss, and a small part of you feels sorry for him and under­stands why he has attached him­self to Jane. He is very adorable when he takes her out for a pic­nic and tries to push her on a swing (think Lars and the Real Girl, but with a corpse). Dina Osmussen, who plays both Jane and her twin sis­ter Jill, is the only good actor in this film. Joe Estevez, who plays the mean Dale, is sim­ply awful and irritating.

The make up effects are also ter­ri­ble. The artists’ main chal­lenge is to make Jane decay effec­tively, and they fail mis­er­ably: the colours are much too bright. Surely decom­pos­ing bod­ies should turn grey?

My main com­plaint was of the overkill of the protagonist’s name. I counted and ‘Char­lie’ was said a total of 157 times, which by the end became frus­trat­ing. How­ever, the sound­track was spot on and much like the older gen­er­a­tion of hor­rors, the music had a mas­sive part in build­ing up the sus­pense. It con­sis­tent­ly­matched the mood of the moment.

Over­all I would say that Autopsy: A Love Story had the mak­ings of being a really excel­lent film, but ultimtely it just didn’t cut it. This is a watch once and for­get about it film.