Autopsy (1975)

- Macchie solari
If you want to see a good giallo, find another movie, 2 July 2005

After you've seen giallo after giallo, you begin to think you've seen it all as far as a convoluted plot goes. But then you stumble upon Autopsy. It's got to be the King of the Bizarre Plot. I'm not going to even attempt to go into it in detail because it's so twisted and things come out of left field that I could never do it justice. Just try to enjoy it for what it is.

But the plot isn't where the majority of my problems with Autopsy lie. Instead, I have a real problem with the cast - specifically Mimsy Farmer as the female lead. Unlike Suzy Kendall in Torso or Edwige Fenech in All the Colors of the Dark, Mimsy Farmer and her character are not sympathetic figures. In order for a giallo to work and work well, the viewer must care about the characters who are in danger. I felt nothing for Mimsy. In fact, I was hoping she would be killed off very early in the movie.

Other things I didn't care for were Mimsy's visions of the morgue patients moving around. It didn't really serve much of a purpose and didn't really go anywhere. Also, the director's decision to show up-close shots of solar flares over and over was totally unnecessary. Again, it didn't really serve much of a purpose and didn't really go anywhere.

There are a lot of good gialli to track down if you're new to the genre. Autopsy, unfortunately, isn't one of them.

4/10