Page 8 DTII Omnibus
Thursday November 2, 1989
CINEMA
Comedy?
Gross Anatomy
Matthew Modine, Daphne Zuniga,
Christine Lahti, Todd Field
directed by Thorn Eberhardt
Ram Triple
967-8284
OO
The story of how five first-year
medical students deal with
the pressure of medical
school and a relentless professor could
have been a touching tale of charac
ter development. But Gross Anatomy
fails to delve into the character of its
players and proves to be nothing more
than an exploration of cadavers, bad
lines and poor acting.
Matthew Modine stars as Joe Slo
vak, a bright, arrogant 26-year-old
who enrolls at Chandler University's
esteemed school of medicine. In
stead of joining his classmates in their
fear and nausea, Modine decides to
follow his own lesson plan of social
izing and romancing. His attitude
toward his schoolwork leads to con
flict with Professor Rachel Woodruff
(Christine Lahti), and his habit of
skirt-chasing leads to a meeting with
Laurie Rorbach (Daphne Zuniga), a
pretty and intense medical student.
Neither relationship is developed
adequately, yet the action continues
anyway, and the plot unravels.
The main problem with the movie
is that the character of Joe Slovak is
never given enough attention, and
the audience is left guessing as to
what is the driving force is inside of
Craven's back, but his
Shocker
Michael Murphy, Peter Berg,
Cami Cooper, Mitch Pileggi
directed by Wes Craven
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Shocker is the new film by writer
director Wes Craven. Craven's
earlier works include the
original Nigjitmare on Elm Street, The
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Drama? Split personalities don't mesh
Thomas Healy
him. Without this insight, the rela
tionships into which Slovak ventures
are as meaningless to the audience as
they are to him.
Slovak is viewed by his" stressed
out classmates as an irresponsible cut
up. But to Woodruff he is a student
with great potential and misdirected
The audience is left
wondering whether it
missed something or
if the screenplay was
poorly written. They
can be assured they
didn't miss a thing
energies. Her attempt to mold him
into a perfect doctor comprises much
of the movie's storyline. She sees his
cockiness and insensitivity as remi
niscent of her own attitude as a young
doctor. Her harsh demands are also
influenced by problems in her per
sonal life. These problems are not
uncovered until late in the movie, so
she comes across as a cold, brutal
Mike Long
Serpent and the Rainbow and a film
that few are familiar with, the cult
classic The Last House on the Left.
Craven returns to familiar territory
in Shocker by filling it with bizarre
visuals and dream images.
Shocker is a fast-paced actionhor
ror film with a hard-driving, heavy
metal soundtrack. The story centers
around Horace Pinker and Jonathan
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mam
1 1 f I I f t i 4 i f 4 4 i 4 4 4
professor concerned only with mak
ing life miserable for her students.
The relationship between Slovak
and Rorbach holds little interest,
because neither character evokes any
sympathy from the audience. For the
first half of the movie, Slovak re
sembles an obnoxious high school
boy pestering a beautiful girl. And
Rorbach, for her part, is a snobby,
uptight, bookworm who is annoyed
by Slovak's antics. Then, for no plau
sible reason, a spark is ignited and
this tiny brush fire is transformed into
a conflagration.
Meanwhile, the audience is left
wondering whether it missed some
thing or if the screenplay was poorly
written. Moviegoers can be assured
they did not miss anything.
The portrayal of a first-year medi
cal school class seems distorted as
well. The constant banter between
the rather immature students is both
annoying and suggestive of a fifth
grade class. The attempt at comedy
contributes to an unrealistic setting.
Furthermore, the conflict between
teacher and student is overempha
sized where no conflict seems justi
fied to exist.
Gross Anatomy is a competent
exploration of the pressures placed
on medical students. The movie il
lustrates how stress and fear can cause
students to lose control of their lives.
When conscientious student David
Schreiner (Todd Field) resorts to
cheating and amphetamines, it is
obvious the course load is too much
for mere humans. However, Gross
Anatomy fails to utilize this theme
fully and misses a chance to salvage
something meaningful from the story.
film just doesn't have
Parker. Pinker (Mitch Pileggi) is a
mass-murderer who has been victim
izing the town of Maryville, murder
ing entire families and getting away
clean.
Parker (Peter Berg) is the local
college football star. Due to a myste
rious relationship between himself
and the killer, he dreams of the mur
ders before they happen.
Thanks to his power, Parker con
vinces his father (Michael Murphy),
a police lieutenant, that he can find
Pinker. Because Parker was respon
sible for Pinker's arrest and subse
quent execution, they become sworn
enemies. Pinker is determined to get
revenge, even after he is put to death
in the electric chair.
" The actors do a good job with the
material they are given. Relative
newcomer Pileggi is fantastic as
Pinker. He really turns on the evil,
and unlike the now-comedic
Freddy Krueger there is no way
viewers could like this character. Peter
Berg as Parker seems to have some
trouble with the more emotional
scenes, but he handles his physically
demanding role well. Other stand
outs include Michael Murphy, as
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Matthew Modine and Christine Lahti square off in 'Gross Anatomy'
The movie snags in the trap of drops them in the viewer's lap. In
trying to be too much to too many stead of exploring one or two con
people. It touches on conflicts rang- flicts in depth, it mentions 10 of them
ing from parental pressure to over- in passing. This creates a weak sto
ambitiousness to marriage and school, ryline that is not worth the two hours
It raises all these problems and then of film it uses.
Parker's dad, and Richard Brooks, as
his friend.
The script of Shocker is far from
original. It has elements of the films
Trick or Treat, Prison, The Hidden,
and most especially, the barely
released The Horror Show.
Craven has trouble holding the
various ideas together and various
plot, devices are left dangling in the
Pileggi really turns
on the evil there
is no way viewers
could like this
character
wind. Less-patient members of the
audience will be frustrated by the
inconsistency of the movie. The
movie's final chase scene, the most
exciting part of the film, doesn't make
muh sense and is never thoroughly
explained., v.
the spark
But despite of these shortcomings,
Craven's visual sense saves the film.
Although it is not truly scary, the
movie contains some suspenseful
scenes. Craven is the master of trick
ing the audience with a dream se
quence. And if viewers think he is
only copying himself from Elm Street,
they need to check out his earlier
work, Deadly Blessing.
The film also contains some daz
zling special effects. The final chase
scene will blow viewers away. Even
Pinker's electric-chair burns appear
to be real probably because they
were modeled after Ted Bundy's!
Overall, Shocker is a disappoint
ment. It's not a bad film, but it's just
not Craven at his best. Obviously,
the lure of a big contract from Uni
versalAlive Films made him lose his
head. He should go back to his low
budget roots and try again.
Although comparison between the
now classic Elm Street and Shocker is
inevitable, they can't really be
compared; Elm Street is simply much
better. But for those who like rou
tine horror films and don't care about
the director's past, Shocker is worth
seeing, . . . . . v " .