Welcome to the world of Pathology – an insidious, dirty little hamlet with a red light in every doorway, vomit in every shoe and a prostitute grandmother forever just within your field of vision. It’s a viscerally nasty place, and in it’s way Pathology is probably the sleaziest bundle of grot and smarm I’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen more grot and viscera (he says with perhaps inappropriate pride) in the likes of Cannibal Holocaust, but it’s the Hollywood sheen of the thing, the layer of gloss created by ‘proper’ effects and a panoply of typical Los Angeles ‘fitties’ that gives the whole affair a sense of bell-enderish self-satisfaction and cocksure smuggitude. At least in Cannibal Holocaust you got to see the pimples of the victim’s arse before it was separated from the rest of him, placing it within the ‘look isn’t all so real’ pseudo-snuff genre. That’s fine for me. I can deal with the film if it’s packaged like that. Pathology, on the other hand, comes hermetically-sealed and FHM-polished, which is damned unsettling. The film teems with grot – bursts at the seems with it – but it’s airbrushed grot, and that creeps me right the hell out.

The plot follows scintillatingly-named medical student Ted as he joins America’s most prestigious pathology programme and begins to discover that the residents who operate within this particular Woolworths-of-dead-people are all, to be generous, ‘crazy-go-monkey-nuts’ and compete in a game of ‘I killed this guy, now guess how’ murderousness. Instead of calling time on this (and the police) Ted goes all Spider-Man 3 dark on us and decides it might be good for some giggles. It’s a strange and disturbing plot, but sounds quite fun in an exploitative way, right? Answer – a slight ashamed yes. I ended up really enjoying all the grime and bloody smarm. It was strangely sickening but there was a sense of spectator’s glee about it, like watching 2 Girls 1 Cup. You know what I mean.

I realise now that I welcomed you at the beginning of this review, which is really not in-keeping with the attitude of the film at all. I should have told you to sit down, stop fidgeting and then given you some sort of cyber dead leg, because it’s a film almost completely occupied by bullies. Not the business bullies of the adult world, but petty, preening, smirking, cheerleader-banging bullies. The characters in Pathology are twenty-somethings who actually, factually, knock the notes out of people’s hands and walk off, giggling, to go smoke crack.

And as they’re all gloriously one-note (or just plain weird) let’s have a quick run-down of all the major players shall we? Let’s start with the bullying gang of murdering pathologists. First there’s Griffin, a statuesque man, and by which I mean a man with the charisma of a statue, and whose concept of social interaction revolves entirely around shoving. Then steps up Catherine, who is Asian and a bisexual, a characteristic probably added at the 11^th hour when the scriptwriter was told that Asian-ness alone doesn’t make a character. Then, there’s Chip Bentwood. Yup, that’s his name. Chip. Bentwood. Thing is, I suppose he just has to have such a doo-lally name, as he actually does NOTHING in the film itself. He’s just there, in the background, an extra set of perfect teeth in the crowd scenes that you keep forgetting about. I’m not joking, he doesn’t even speak! He just beer-swills, smokes crack and smirks with the rest of them. Weird. Then comes the main girl, Juliette (Lauren Lee Smith), tempting sexpot love interest to Ted and a really ‘off’ one at that. I don’t mean ugly – she has all her facial features in the right place and a set of inflated knockers – just really wrong. Maybe I’m the weirdy here, but I just don’t get what’s hot about a girl with a big rack who spends all her hours putting out amongst cadavers. Leader of this grötley crüe is Jake Gallo, (Michael Weston), pathology authority and possessor of all ten shades of the raving crazies, who when he isn’t declaring himself God, is either shagging grannies, drunk-driving or killing hookers with a wiry, slurring, twitching energy that would make Jack the Ripper proud, then disturbed, then proud again.

Weston is also the best thing in the film. His mania, while completely unsubtle and unrealistic was downright entertaining and the gleam in his eye, while perhaps not menacing, was camply bewitching like the best panto-villains from your childhood. He certainly acted energetic rings around pasta-surnamed Milo Ventimiglia, as the aforementioned breathtakingly-named Ted. Ventimiglia seems to have graduated from the American Serial Drama school of acting, which consists of frowning and muttering, both at the same time during the dramatic bits!

Pathology’s plot is wrong, simply put. Ted has the weirdest arc of any ‘hero’ I’ve ever heard of. To boil it down: boy meets gang, gang kills people, boy is horrified and appalled, boy sleeps on it, boy joins gang, kills people, smokes crack and makes sex with girl, boy makes arbitrary decision that murder isn’t the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon, boy spends rest of film revenging himself on gang. Ted becomes as unsympathetic as the rest and then we’re meant to cheer him on? Generally, once you’ve murdered your first stranger, crusades of justice tend not to become your second hobby. Even though this was the screenwriter’s fault I blame Ventimiglia anyway, because he’s a really boring actor and more successful than, say, me.

We’ve established that the plot is a mess, the characters are unrealistic, and the acting is, with the exception of Weston, dull. The question remains: why did I like this film?

A couple of reasons I suppose. Firstly, I always offer at least partial respect to a Hollywood thriller willing to embrace grisly gore and guts whilst not chopping out the visceral thrills for the sake of a commercially preferable PG-13 status. Secondly I, like most, give great levels of tolerance to my guilty pleasures, one of which is splatter flicks, and the fact that Pathology not only revels in guts but wears them like a hat and dances the hootchie-coo fills me with boyish glee. The violence, while gratuitous is inventive. One guy gets his by being tricked into breathing liquid nitrogen and then having his lungs broken by body blows. Sweet. Someone else is dealt with by drugging them ‘just enough’ (actual quotation – medical term) to be still alive whilst someone cracks open their ribcage with the biggest pair of pliers I’ve ever seen. Awesome. Yes, it’s immature, but fantasy violence has its place and, while not everyone’s guilty pleasure, it is mine and those who don’t indulge themselves now may end up growing to be as boring as Milo Ventimiglia, the successful bastard.

Finally, the direction is, well, functional. This was always more about the gory silliness anyway and as there’s no way to turn Pathology into Citizen Kane, director Marc Schoelermann seems happy to point the camera at the nasty and throw in enough schizophrenic camera-effect trickery to hold interest.

All in all, Pathology is a sleazy, smirking, obnoxious little film that got swept under the carpet, like the creepy bug that it was. It’s a deformed, unusual creature that glorifies it’s own unlikeable nature and is not, by any means good. But with pizza and beer it’s enjoyably filthy, which makes a pleasant change from the reams of bland J-horror remakes out there. If you don’t like it, can’t blame you, but if the Saw franchise holds a special place for you then find it, because no one else did. One thing to be said for it is that it’s got guts, even if they are all over your shoes. I was smirking while I typed that.