Anatomy (2000)

Excellent but underrated film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

There may be some slight spoilers in this review, but no worse than what you'd get from reading the plot synopsis.I'm surprised that people are comparing this to Scream and other teen slashers. The protagonists in this movie are students in medical school, not high school kids. That may be a minor distinction, but the movie is obviously targeted to a slightly older demographic than teens. For one thing, most teen slashers are rated PG-13, making them really quite limp and inhibited.At first, I thought this was going to be more "torture porn" than anything else, given the outrageous and over-the-top torture sequence early in the movie. Interestingly, it actually turned into a somewhat derivative slasher movie, despite having an interesting setup. The basic plot involves a gifted medical student discovering a secret society in her university. Long thought dead, they are composed of Machiavellian physicians who believe that sacrificing a few innocent people to advance medical research is more important than ethics. Predictably, they have some psychopaths among them who are more interested in live dissection than any kind of research.I liked the idea of this secret society, and there were some truly disturbing scenes in this movie. The whole concept of that secret society got under my skin, partly because the characters really did seem to believe that what they were doing was for the greater good. However, there were so many stupid scenes involving the characters being goofy and horny that I found the movie difficult to take seriously. As I understand it, this is mostly because I watched the dubbed version, which is supposed to truly destroy any mood or atmosphere set by the original German actors.Still, I liked it, despite the best attempts by the American voice actors to sabotage the movie. If I'd seen the original German version, with subtitles, I think I'd like it better. Still, no matter what language the characters were speaking, I think there was too much filler in the middle and not enough time spent developing the secret society.I recommend this movie to people who like conspiracy thrillers and slasher fans. However, thriller fans might be grossed out by the horror elements, and horror fans might be bored by the dramatic elements. Make sure you see the subtitled version. I've heard worse, but it's still distractingly bad.

But wait? Is this really a good horror movie that brings the viewer to some provocation of critical thought? Leave it to a foreign film to actually accomplish a terrifying narrative that includes a factually based philosophical under theme. I do enjoy awful horror movies, (there are plenty of them), but I also appreciate good cinema. Horror movies can very rarely be called good cinema but Anatomy comes close to accomplishing the thoughtfully written horror movie genera. A quick non-spoiler synopsis: Main character Paula is accepted to historic and prestigious Heidelberg medical institute. Her father is a dieing physician who expresses some qualms about her acceptance. Upon arrival, she is thrilled to be able to access world famous professors and a museum/library of complete cross- sectional anatomical items. Meddlesome inquisitiveness arises however when she recognizes one of the corpses. Paula attempts to piece together the historic universities dark secret that allows the institution to maintain its progressive research reputation. What destroys most horror movies is predictability, and this movie is able to lead the viewer to come to false, (or partially false), conclusions; much like a good mystery novel would. The cinematography is pungent, allowing emotions to permeate the scenes, uncorrupted by stereotypical deutch angles and other horror strategies. Also worth noting is the soundtrack which combines with Anatomy's cinematography to give the movie a very progressive American movie tone.This movie is subtitled and to get the full advantage of its cinematic quality requires a bit of attentional resources. If that's a problem, you're not in the mood for a noteworthy movie, pick something else. Otherwise this is a horror movie that will stand out from its other American slasher movie contemporaries.

"Anatomy" is a somewhat decent film if not entirely all that great.**SPOILERS**Preparing for her studies, Paula Henning, (Franka Potente) is accepted into Heidelberg University with Prof. Grombeck, (Traugott Buhre) in his Anatomy Class, said to be one of the most advanced and prestigious around. Meeting with other students Gretchen, (Anna Loos) and Caspar, (Sebastian Blomberg) in the class, she wonders if her family reputation will affect her chances. When she gets back to her classes, she starts to wonder about the selection of corpses used, and begins to suspect that something isn't right. Investigating the situation, she finds evidence that an illegal practice of outlaw doctors performing unethical experiments is linked to several professors on the campus, and she soon finds herself targeted to keep the secrets hidden, and she races to stop them from doing so.The Good News: There wasn't a whole lot to this one. One of the best parts to this is the mystery angle that's played up about what the practice is really doing and who's involved, generating some tension to this one later on. The fact that it does this is actually a fun idea, as there's plenty to be crept out at by the rather large amount of time spent among cadavers, which is enough on it's own but here, using the practice is where it really scores a lot of great scenes where she's investigating them. That the look to them is really creepy is another big plus, as the look where they remain intact but are displayed so that the inner workings and organs are visible, often-times while the skin is still attached to the rest of the body, producing a cool and creepy visual. The film does include a little sleaze with it's really fun striptease in the morgue. It works nicely and really gets those elements into the film. The last good plus is the fact that the last half of the film is a full-on traditional slasher movie sequence, complete with a creepy stalking through the library and out into the rest of the campus and is done with a lot of fun times and come really good moments to come along with it. It's one of the better scenes in the film and they're all quite well done, leaving these as the highlights of the film.The Bad News: There was a couple of really big flaws noticeable for this one. One of the main ones is the complete lack of true horror atmosphere for the film. The idea behind it isn't exactly the greatest one to provide some horror elements, seemingly set-up like a thriller instead with the inclusion of the evil cult and the very way it's handled in here. The fact that it's introduced into the film so very late as it is does account for some flaws, as we're left with the utter dullness of the first half's focus on the special classes and the behavior surrounding them that not a lot of horror-specific elements are presented into the film, but also because it does this, we don't really know a whole lot about the cult to begin. Seemingly, it relies on the notion of being practitioners of illegal experiments to create it's fear of them, since we know nothing about the other than how they work, which can work if they only went into action more often as they don't really do that much anyway. That manages to make the cult hardly involved in the film about them and completely nonthreatening due to their absolute non-appearance and complete cluelessness over what they are actually doing, effectively reducing their fear. The last flaw here is the fact that this one is really dull, as it doesn't have a whole lot of stuff that manages to stick out as being worthwhile for the longest time due to the inclusion of all the other elements mentioned so far make it all the more boring. These here are the film's flaws.The Final Verdict: Not entirely worthless, but not all that enjoyable either unless you happen to be a fan of these films or like the concept. If either of these apply to you, then this will be highly recommended viewing, otherwise this will most likely be a severe disappointment and should be viewed with caution.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity and a mild sex scene

ANATOMIE is a German horror thriller which main topic is an interesting issue: the ethic and the limits in medicine. The plot isn't very different from the typical horror flick but this specific thematic turns it a bit more interesting. In the film it's described a secret Masonic organization called A.A.A (Age Actabile Antihippocrate) - which I suppose to be fiction – that denies the Hippocrates's ideals of helping and healing. Medicine is a science, and it must be developed without caring about ethical thoughts they say. It's precisely this "implicit debate" what I found more attractive in this film and different from other flicks. I'm not telling it's completely original or brilliant, I just say it's a bit different, in good way... Apart from that it's a typical movie from the "psycho chasing victim type". It has nice suspense scenes, mainly in the last 15 minutes, but nothing outstanding... I score it 6/10.