You're a young, intelligent, and of course, pretty blond post-doc medical student. You've got more than a bit of an Electra complex, as your silver fox, over-tanned daddy has always hugged you a little too tightly most of your life. This has, unfortunately, left you quite frigid in the sex department. Alas, it's the height of summer, and the heat is unbearable. Most people have vacationed to the cooler, milder beach towns and resorts. Sunspot activity is observed to be at an all-time high. Suddenly, there's a rash of violent murders and suicides sweeping the city – all without reasons or motives. You work as a pathologist in the central morgue. Besides that, you're also trying to finish up your thesis on the differentiations of psychological effects between suicide, natural deaths, and homicide. But the bodies are beginning to pile up. You're exhausted. But you're also incredibly passionate and invested in the work itself – cutting up body after body after body, dissecting and analyzing organ after organ, all the while dripping sweat inside your surgical gown. You begin to hallucinate from the exhaustion… the dead bodies are actually alive! They rise, stare at you, taunt you, force you to watch as the have zombie-sex with one another! Some awaken to the nightmare of being undead, and just scream and scream! But you snap out of it. It's just all that Freudian sexual frustration boiling up inside of you. Right?Such is the case with Autopsy's Simona Sana, played by one of giallo's better actresses, Mimsy Farmer (Four Flies on Grey Velvet, The Perfume of the Lady in Black, The Black Cat). Poor Simona. When one of her father's young playthings ends up on the slab, Simona realizes that not only was she one of the last to see this young beauty alive, but that her own father might be a murderer! All the evidence leads to suicide though, right? But the girl's Catholic priest brother sets out to prove that suicide is the very last thing his sister would ever have contemplated, let alone go through with. In between the balancing act of withholding evidence to protect her father, lying to the priest to keep him off the right track, keeping her perpetually horny boyfriend at bay, and fending off one of her terrorizing ex-stepmothers, Simona's got more than her hands full. The priest (who Simona is now sexually attracted to) demands that they work together, but how can she look for the real killer, and keep her father safe at the same time? And her brain can't take much more of this either – the hallucinations keep popping up under the most startling and often horrific circumstances. Are the sunspots responsible for all of this madness? Is her father really the killer after all? Is the priest? Is she herself the killer? Could Simona be that far gone?Few Italian Horror films split the vote the way Autopsy does. Not really a giallo, and certainly not the zombie film most trailers, posters, and video art taken from it would lead you to believe. And just who the hell is the director of this hodgepodge, Armando Crispino? In a genre of filmmaking like Italian Horror, which is extremely and perhaps overly attached to auteur theory, why the hell should someone stop and notice a film made by a relative nobody? One time assistant director to the likes of Pietro Germi, Crispino directed nine films in nine years (1966-1975), and Autopsy is one of his last. In fact, besides this film and a previous giallo from 1972, The Dead are Alive (aka The Etruscan Kills Again), most of his own work is forgettable, forgotten, and not worth finding – although his last film, Frankenstein: Italian Style, sounds like it might at least be a hoot in the camp department.So again, why Autopsy? Yes, its story is convoluted (see above). It's got its fair share of non sequiturs, deus ex machinas, and red herrings like all the rest. Yeah, in some ways Autopsy's just another Freudian Psych. 102 class-cum-thriller, but there's something else here. Autopsy has a risky, devil-may-care, je ne sais quoi that separates it from almost all the others in its genre. Crispino took a chance with this highly unusual story, and I think it pays off in spades. The film's deliberate, unorthodox pace is stimulating, and the absence of the usual 'insert murder every X-minutes' structure just makes it that much more suspenseful. Autopsy is audacious in that it is at least trying to be different from the rest – something extraordinary and marked by brilliance, but not completely tangible or so easy to explain, or therefore, to explain away. Simona's truly bizarre sexual hang-ups, the doom-laden sunspots, the morally ambiguous priest, the creepy father-daughter subtext, and the big blown-up photographs of real corpses – it all makes for an unclassifiable film. And as we all learned in Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling, people would just as soon kill you before taking time to try and understand you. Is this the case with Autopsy's mixed reputation?Despite the always-shocking opening minutes, the delightfully uncomfortable hallucinations that pepper the film, the 'death museum' sequence (which is one of the most beautifully structured and impudently repellant set pieces in all of Italian Horror) and the obligatory yet nail-biting showdown at the end, perhaps the idea behind Autopsy is greater than the film itself. Such a statement is contrary to most Italian Horror, as many of the films attributed to this genre are supposedly lacking in the idea department, but prove their worth visually and stylistically. This is precisely why Autopsy is one of the 'must-see' films in Italian Horror, for although it stays more than true to the tenets of visual flair and graphic sex/violence, it attempts to transcend the weaknesses of its own genre. And despite, in some people's eyes, the failure of said attempt, Autopsy unarguably gets an'A' for effort.

"Autopsy", as it's known here in North America, is pretty good of its type, with a solid, intriguing story, one that doesn't get bogged down with twists. It's got some gore going for it, but in truth is never as violent as that American title would indicate. The story is of course fairly sordid, but the level of sleaze is never too high, with doses of female flesh here and there.Lovely Mimsy Farmer is a pathology student in Rome puzzling over a succession of suicides, partly because she's doing a thesis on natural vs. faked suicides. Could these people really be killing themselves, or is a murderer at work? Simona (Farmer) works with a young race car driver turned priest, Paul Lenox (the under-rated veteran character actor Barry Primus) to determine the truth. One of these deaths was that of Lenox's sister, and he's convinced she had to have been killed by someone else.This is never too hard to follow, and it's got at least one appreciably unique gimmick going for it: sunspots, it's theorized, could be inducing some sort of mass psychosis in the minds of the victims. The story is populated with entertaining characters, including Simona's father (Carlo Cattaneo), his romantic partner (Angela Goodwin), and Simona's friend Edgar, played by the handsome Ray Lovelock whom fans of foreign horror will recognize from "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" and "Last House on the Beach".Enriched by an Ennio Morricone music score that's equal parts beautiful and spooky, "Autopsy" is more straightforward than some Giallo fans may expect, although it still finds the time to feature some truly hideous, hallucinatory imagery. Use of locations is a plus, as are the performances. Mimsy is appealing and believably vulnerable, Primus is appropriately intense, and Lovelock is amusing to watch every time he's on screen. Credit is due to co-writer and director Armando Crispino, who reels us in immediately with a grabber of an opening.All in all, this is good stuff; it might not be trashy enough for some lovers of the Giallo genre, but it entertains solidly and stays on track up to its grim finish.Seven out of 10.

An unrelenting severe heatwave causes a rash of shocking suicides throughout the city of Rome. Stressed-out, overworked buttoned-down forensic pathologist Simona (winningly played by the lovely Mimsy Farmer) and intense, uptight, aggressive priest Paul Lennox (a fabulously fierce and forceful performance by Barry Primus) decide to investigate one of the suicides. They put themselves in considerable jeopardy when they uncover a vicious killer. Director Armando Crispino, who also co-wrote the crafty and twist-ridden script, ably creates a morbidly upsetting atmosphere, stages the murder set pieces with commendable brio, and maintains a constant snappy pace throughout. The opening montage of random suicides is truly jarring. The movie reaches its gloriously sick and jaw-dropping zenith during the delirious sequence where Simona imagines that the corpses in the morgue are coming back to life and copulating with each other. Ray Lovelock contributes a solid supporting turn as Simona's smooth playboy race car driver lover Edgar; their major sex scene is pretty graphic and genuinely erotic. Carlo Carlini's lively, polished cinematography, Ennio Morricone's creepy, throbbing, unnerving score and the truly startling, yet exciting climax are all likewise up to par as well. A pleasingly perverse and warped giallo outing which overall rates as essential viewing for hardcore Italian horror buffs.

Armando Crispino's "Autopsy" is a very fascinating and puzzling film,which both amuses,grosses out and confuses.This is surely one of the most complicated giallos ever made.After watching it,I'm still very confused about how everything fits together in the plot."Autopsy" is not a horror film-I'd rather call it a giallo with some horror elements.There is plenty of sleaze and nudity,so fans of Italian exploitation should be pleased.The score by always reliable Ennio Morricone is excellent.The acting is very good with Mimsy Farmer("Camping del Terrore","The Black Cat","The Perfume of the Lady in Black")giving an outstanding performance as a forensic pathologist Simona.A must-see for fans of Italian giallos.