Quick Change

I know I say it every time I cover a film from this time period, but my GOSH: those mid 2000s were an ugly, ugly time in horror. 

With that said, Pathology!

Quick Plot: A quick pre-credits sequence shows us a bunch of young people making corpses talk like ventriloquists. So basically, we already know we're going to be spending the next 90 minutes with some awful people. AWESOME.

They're quickly proven to be worse than you think. Dr. Ted Gray, after graduating at the top of his medical school class, is the fresh face at an incredibly prestigious, incredibly white pathology residency filled with alphas. They spend their days cutting up corpses and evenings doing what they can to add to the pile.

As Flatliners and other medical school-centered horror movies have told us, young doctors are sociopaths. In the case of Pathology, they're insufferable sociopaths who have made a game out of committing undetectable murders on the city's undesirables. 

Dr. Ted Gray (like the characters in the movie, I too will refer to everyone by their full names) quickly falls in line, stabbing and liquid nitrogen poisoning like the best of them. Despite being engaged to Alyssa Milano, Dr. Ted Gray starts sleeping with Dr. Juliette Bath, one of his classmates who's already in a relationship with Dr. Catherine Ivy and/or Dr. Jake Gallo (it's never exactly clear how this trio works).

Not shockingly, things escalate. Dr. Jake Gallo grows progressively unhinged right as Alyssa Milano (not a doctor, so I'll just use her regular name in full) comes to stay with Dr. Ted Gray, riling his nightly activities. 

Pathology is directed by Marc Schölermann from a script courtesy of Crank and Gamer's Neveldine and Taylor. Considering that duo's bonanza energy in other products, I get the feeling that the gloomy end result onscreen comes more from the final execution. On the page, I can almost see where Pathology had something going for it. The actual concept feels fresh, and the final act tosses in multiple twists that actually surprised me. 

Unfortunately, it's a slog to get there. Dr. Ted Gray makes no sense as a character. He's introduced as the kind of hopeful youth who dutifully spends three months in Africa on a volunteer mission, then falls in line with actual murder in less than one week drinking with the atrocious Dr. Jake Gallo. He has Alyssa Milano in his arms yet shows not a morsel of remorse in shagging Dr. Juliette Bath on the same sectional where the latter's abusive father has just been murdered. Had Dr. Ted Gray (sorry, but I can't not keep doing it) been given a hint of a backstory or one more scene to explain how someone could so quickly toss his morals away, maybe, just maybe we could at least understand, if not sympathize. 

That's not Pathology's only problem. On paper, this should be shocking. Made in the second act of the Saw franchise's success, there's little spared in bloody body part closeups or boobs. An early montage tries so hard to be shocking that it shoves two women doing meth in between making out over the bloodied corpse of a murder victim in slow motion. CAN YOU HANDLE THIS EDGINESS? Pathology seems to scream. 

Yes, but that doesn't mean we want to. 

High Points

This involves a spoiler and a lot of cooperation with my 25 year obsession with Olivia Benson and Law & Order: SVU. 

You have been warned.

There's a running rule for the show that states without exception that anytime the squad's family members are involved in an episode, I as a viewer will be miserable. Rollins' wayward sister just makes life hard, Tutuola's nightmare nephew ruins careers, Elliot's bushel of children always get in the way, and so on. I can write volumes on how just unreasonably deep my hatred for Benson's son Noah runs, but if you can possibly believe it, there's a relation that's even worse: Simon Marsden.

Simon shows up in season 8 and appears five times over the next several years. He's the long-lost half brother of Olivia Benson who, aside from having a rapist father, finds himself on the wrong side of the law in a variety of cases. 

All of these episodes are terrible and annoying, and make our stalwart heroine look like an idiot in the name of saving her terrible horrible no good very bad half-brother who can't make a single good decision to save his short life. To be clear: THIS MAN IS WORSE THAN NOAH BENSON.

I hate this character. What, you ask, does that have anything to do with 2008's Pathology? It's a dull answer: the actor. Michael Weston plays both Simon and Dr. Jake Gallo, so if nothing else, I thank Pathology for SPOILER ALERT, giving me another death scene for one of my least favorite people ever to appear on my television screen. 

Low Points

There's so much to be annoyed at with Pathology, but I really do think its major error comes in how little it thinks the audience needs to go on a journey with its lead. Milo Ventimiglia is perfectly fine as Dr. Ted Gray (NOT STOPPING), but he gets absolutely nothing to work with in terms of why an intelligent young man would suddenly throw everything away to part with Olivia Benson's kin. As a result, it is truly impossible to invest any kind of feeling in what happens to anyone in this movie. What a weird choice

Lessons Learned

Never cut into the poop pipe

Pathology season really picks up during the holidays

The feeling of guilt is actually the fear of getting caught

Rent/Bury/Buy

I sort of hated Pathology, but I can also concede that it's going for something fairly different, particularly during this rough patch of late aughts horror. I don't know anyone that I'd directly recommend it to, but hey, if you're in the market for a grisly medical school Fight Club with less nuance and more female nudity, here you go. Find it now on Max, or HBO, or whatever we're calling it by the time this post goes live. 

Worth Every Quarter

I need to find some kind of term for the kind of "credits heh?" movie that I find so often on Amazon Prime. You know what I mean: you queue up a film you know little about only to say, "heh" multiple times as names you know well show up. It's a positive turn of speech that comes from the top of your throat, not a full-out "wow", more a shortened form of "hey". In the case of 1993's Arcade, which was released by Full Moon right as I stopped renting those movies every weekend, it's a parade of incredibly important '90s faces (at least to young me).

Rayanne!

Ralphie!

OZ!

And of course, LUCAS

Quick Plot: Teenage Alex has had a rough year. It happens when you're the one to find your mother's dead body from a self-inflicted gunshot. Thankfully, she has a solid group of pals and a loyal boyfriend Greg, all of whom enjoy afterschool hours down at an arcade called Dante's Inferno.

One afternoon, the gang is excited to be part of the test audience for the less than creatively named virtual reality game Arcade. Skeptic Nick goes first and falls in love, but when Greg takes up the controls, he seems to vanish. The teens are a little distracted by the complimentary home versions to notice for a while. 

Alex senses something is wrong, especially when she takes a turn and discovers the games seems to know she's looking for Greg. Nick begrudgingly decides to do some research with her, only for them to discover the rest of their friends have been sucked into Arcade. A trip to the development headquarters yields some disturbing answers: in order to keep upping interest from a bored generation of gaming teens, the company has resorted to using human DNA. It goes as well as you think it would.

Full Moon Entertainment was probably the first film studio I knew by logo. To young video store regular Emily, its presence implied killer dolls. Was there anything better?

Released (kind of?) in 1993, Arcade feels like a far more professional production than some of the Demonic Toys offshoots that would come shortly after. Sure, the actual visuals are as dated as you'd expect, but the general video game theorizing still has relevance a lifetime later. Screenwriter David S. Goyer would go on to a far more glamorous career in the DC and Marvel universe, but as someone who usually groans when I see his name above the title, I can say with surprising confidence that this might be my new favorite of his credits. 

It's not the deepest compliment to ever say that this is top tier Albert Pyun (this is the same prolific B-movie maestro who directed Alien From LA). Still, Arcade IS good! Maybe my expectations were low, but this film had a lot of charm. The early '90s aesthetic goes pretty far, plus we have a genuinely strong young cast easily holding our interest. The ending is satisfyingly pleasant, then even MORE satisfyingly winking if you catch the Amazon Prime 'extended' version. All in all, well worth a few quarters. 

High Points

Megan Ward isn't the most dynamic of final girls, but her Alex is a believably hurting teenager, and by the end, I was fully onboard in rooting for her triumph

Low Points

90 minutes is absolutely the right length for a 1993 low budget horror movie about virtual reality gone wrong, but with a cast this stacked, it's hard not to feel like this film deserved a LITTLE more time with some character interactions and development

Lessons Learned

To sublimate is to mess up

Nothing gets executive attention like the threat of a virgin sacrifice

Any Star Trek: Next Generation fan would know: never buy anything Q is selling, even if it's free

Rent/Bury/Buy

I can acknowledge that I'm a VERY particular demographic. Arcade might not have worked for 11-year-old me, but 31 years later, it's incredibly satisfying in a fairly dumb way. Give it a go via Amazon Prime.