Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

At a prestigious medical Summer school, medical student Paula Henning (Franke Potente) discovers that a secret society of doctors is conducting illegal experiments on her fellow pupils.

"Anatomie" is a bad film, primarily due to the fact that the script is predictable and incredibly poorly written: the writer doesn't seem to understand the concept of a contained thriller; he misses out on many opportunities that could have made for interesting viewing; and breaking all rules of good screenwriting, has the killer revealing himself to our heroine 2/3 of the way through the film, rather than having the heroine discover him for herself. Don't even get me started on what I think of the film's completely useless hero. Nevertheless, in spite of its multitude of faults, I actually enjoyed watching "Anatomie". It's not the best horror film that I have ever seen (duh!), but it's a fun way to spend an evening, and the film's writer/director does seem to have tried very hard to make it into something more than what it actually is: a B-grade teenage hack and slash.

Anatomy (Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2000)

Seeing Stefan Ruzowitzky's medical thriller Anatomy so quickly after seeing Nacho Cerda's twisted Aftermath made for an interesting contrast. Anatomy is obviously a much more mainstream, commercial film, but many of the underlying conceits are the same; the two make a great pair.

In Anatomy, two women-- Paula (Lola Rennt's Franka Potente) and Gretchen (Anna Loos, who also sings the soundtracks' exceptionally sexy "My Truth"), are accepted into an exclusive medical school in Heidelberg. While on the train there, they meet David (The Counterfeiters' Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey), a young man with a terminal heart defect who's on his way to see yet another specialist. On their second day of classes, David turns up on Paula's dissection table, and there are some very odd things about his body. Paula, with the help of her would-be boyfriend Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg of the upcoming The Baader-Meinhof Complex) and Gretchen, starts digging into David's mysterious death, and discovers that all at the school is not nearly what it seems.

First off, a warning: watch this with subtitles. The dubbed version is absolutely execrable, and plays more like a bad comedy than the tight, intriguing thriller that it actually is. Ruzowitzky, who also wrote the script, could have probably used another pair of eyes-- some of the plot twists are predictable, if still fun-- but there's a good vein of black humor running underneath the outrageous plot, and he's got a very good grasp of how to use light and shadow to create suspense, something that's almost lost in Hollywood these days outside the influence of a select few directors. The movie is quite nicely paced, after the opening scenes (which get bogged down in setup), and the acting is all at least competent, with some of it really engaging (Loos' character, once we get to know her, is especially fantastic). While the characters in the movie flirt with stereotype-- Grethcne the bimbo, Paula the bookish nerd, Phil the geek, Caspar the clown, etc.-- there's always just enough going on in their personalities that they never slide into cardboard. It's a pretty impressive little flick, and you probably missed it the first time around. If medical-style thrillers are your bag, this should be right up your alley. *** ½