Neveldine/Taylor

(In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) If horror movies can get away with one thing, it’s being as unpleasant as possible. Pathology, alluding to the double meaning of its title, delights in making its viewers as uncomfortable as possible, combining the lurid horror of a pathological killer with a clinical depiction of the work performed by its pathologists. It’s a film largely shot in cold antiseptic tones in autopsy rooms, as our protagonist faces down killer colleagues with a penchant for toying with victims and setting up disquieting hypotheticals. Pathology doesn’t have much of a plot, but it does have an atmosphere — the kind of atmosphere fit to make viewers recoil from the gallows humour, caricatural evil antagonists and unflinching surgical procedures. (If you’re the kind of person to flinch at scalpels cutting into bodies, well, Pathology isn’t the film for you.)  Nowadays most remarkable for being written by Neveldine/Taylor with their usual touch of narrative wildness, Pathology is not exactly a good time at the movies but it is more unnerving than most horror films. I’d be surprised if it raked up many repeat viewings, but then again that’s another thing that a horror film can get away with.