ANATOMY is a medical thriller produced by Columbia Tristar Germany. The film, written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, was a hit with the jaded horror crowd in Germany, and Columbia Tristar figured there may be a market for this slick looking thriller in North American theaters. The studio executives released ANATOMY in select cities with poor box office receipts, so a direct-to-video fate was inevitable. The film does have one thing going for it, the strong performance of Franka Potente as the lead character. Foreign cinemaphiles remember Potente from the acclaimed RUN, LOLA, RUN. Columbia Tristar released this clunker on DVD in 2001, packed with special edition materials to entice fans of SCREAM.

Medical student Paula Henning (Franka Potente) scores big on a national medical essay contest, and wins free tuition to the respected Heidelberg Medical School. She is ecstatic about this because her father and grandfather were physicians before her, and now she will be able to live out her lifetime dream. On the train up to the college, Paula meets Gretchen (Anna Loos), another medical hopeful whose IQ is as big as her bust measurements. In one of the train compartments a young man with a heart condition named David (Arnot Schwering-Sohrey) passes out. Paula rushes into the adjoining train compartment and performs CPR on him, thus restoring David to consciousness. When they arrive at the prestigious Heidelberg, Gretchen becomes more interesting in seducing the young male doctors than working on studies and becomes involved with Hein (Benno Furmann).

The medical students pass the time by engaging in sophomoric pranks such as rigging dead bodies with electricity to make them move. Among the young medical prospects Anna meets Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg). Professor Grombeck (Traugott Furmann) is receptive to Anna’s almost-natural medical ability, and finally gives her a corpse to dissect. But Anna is shocked to discover the body belongs to David, the guy she saved earlier. The conditions surrounding his death do not jive with what she learned from David, so she feels something screwy is going on at Heidelberg. Anna starts her own investigation into the mysterious circumstances and discovers Heidelberg is not the place it appears to be. After much nosing around, she stumbles upon a secret medical society who disavow the Hippocratic Oath, and prefer to experiment on living humans to further their knowledge of medicine. This secret organization has ties to her own family, and they eventually target the snooping Anna for an unplanned operation…

Stefan Ruzowitzky is surely a better director than he is a writer, because his script is full of plot holes, flat characterizations, and horror clichés. Ruzowitzky obviously was impressed with Universal’s THE SKULLS that he decided to redo it at a medical school with a female as the lead character. After the script tosses all these conspiracy angles and red herrings, the killer is exactly who you think it is at the 10 minute mark. All the shock scenes are telegraphed so early that none of it becomes scary or suspenseful. To his credit, Ruzowitzky serves it all up with polish to make it more tolerable. He is obviously inspired by the expressionist filmmakers and stages some fitting tributes to Fritz Lang. In several scenes inside the sterile looking medical school, Ruzowitzky films the drama on angular sets with shadowy backlighting. He controls the generic pacing with a fair amount of flair and fluidity. Ruzowitzky places the audience into this thriller by using the viewer behind the camera. Technically, a ANATOMY is a well conceived production but the basics are seriously lacking.

Except for Franka Potente, the casting is second major problem with ANATOMY. Potente’s performance gives the audience someone to identify when the film presents us with more ludicrous plot twists and see-through red herrings. Aside from Franka and Loos (as Gretchen) the cast is comprised entirely of baby-faced actors who all look strangely similar. Especially disappointing is the unthreatening villain/killer. Yes, it’s another skinny pretty boy psychotic teenager who can’t act his way out of a sitcom, ala SCREAM. It’s hard to attach a sense of menace to a film when the actor and his character are both spoiled brats.

Since ANATOMY is a medical thriller that focuses on surgery, there are a few moments of gore effects. But not nearly as much as you’d think. Gore fans going into this expecting a high level of violence and bloody special effects will surely be disappointed. Stefan Ruzowitzky goes out of his way to spare the audience anything particularly disgusting or unsettling. One cool effects attribute are the detailed displays of the skinless human bodies that look like they stepped out of HELLRAISER. A professor informs us that these displays are real corpses with all the water and fats sucked out, and then sealed with a layer of plastic.

From the Special Features menu, you can access an abundance of extra features. There is a music video for ANATOMY (WS, DD 2.0, 4:02). There are storyboard to film comparisons with the storyboard shots a small window, with the actual scene in another window. There are talent files for Franka Potente and Stefan Ruzowitzky. The Making of Documentary is Full Frame, DD 2.0, and runs 4:51 (it is in German with English subtitles). There is another documentary focusing on ANATOMY’s make-up effects, which is Full Frame, DD 2.0, and runs 2:62 (in German with English subtitles). There are two trailers for ANATOMY, a teaser (FF, DD 2.0, 46) and a full length one (WS, DD 2.0, 1:10); both in English. Also trailers for RUN LOLA RUN (WS, DD 2.0, 1:31) and CIRCUS (WS, DD 2.0, 1:42). You can also view two alternative scenes not shown in the movie. They are Disposal of Body (2:35:1, DD 2.0, 3:15) and Hein Chases Paula (2:35:1, DD 2.0, 1:44); that second one should have been included in the film. You can also hear the audio commentary with director Stefan Ruzowitzky. This dry commentary is in German with English subtitles.

-  Darren Collette