Autopsy, The Naked Coroner

Remember the TV show "Quincy"? Jack Klugman played a medical examiner who went around solving murders. Fortunately Klugman kept his clothes on during that show. Today we look at 1975's "Autopsy" where the sultry Mimsy Farmer is cast as a medical examiner in Italy who keeps taking off her clothes to have pre-marital sex. When she doesn't take them off, some odd guy does it for her. Even the corpses in her morgue seem to be excited by her sex-appeal. Nothing says "Naked Raw Passion" like a babe with a corpse on her slab. Was "Quincy" inspired by "Autopsy"? You be the judge.

As our film opens we see several grisly suicides. It is August in Italy and sunspots might be causing these suicides. Simona (Farmer) sees many of these victims in her morgue and begins seeing visions of these corpses rising and either beckoning her or engaging in sex. Distressed, Simona goes home and has a chance meeting with her dad's young GF (Gaby Wagner). Simona next meets this vixen when she appears on a slab in her morgue with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Simona becomes suspicious that perhaps these suicides aren't suicides but homicides. On cue Father Lenox (Barry Primus) storms into the morgue and announces that the girl on the slab is his sister and she did not commit suicide. Father Lenox was a former Grand Prix driver and was responsible for 11 deaths during the "Massacre at Le Mans" (...don't ask).

Lenox and Simona team up, but really don't get along. Simona's beau, Ed (Ray Lovelock) appears and the two try to have lots of pre-marital sex. Simona pulls away each time as visions of corpses invade her mind. In fact the only way she can have sex is to imagine it is with her new priest friend. As more of Simona's friends, acquaintances, and relatives commit suicide, Simona makes a startling discovery in her morgue which puts her life in danger. As the sunspots continue, our babe coroner becomes unhinged causing us to wonder if she may be responsible for the deaths.

Is Simona the killer or the next victim? Just how is someone able to make dozens of suicides appear as murder? Is this film a thinly veiled metaphor for humanity's subconscious desire to have sexual intercourse with the dearly departed? Wait...where did that come from!  Erotic and creepy, enjoy this horror yarn from Italy, "Autopsy."