Coma (1978).... still holds up fairly well as an efficient suspenseful thriller.
How could it not? Just like death and taxes, mortal fear of going to the hospital remains eternal.....
And who better to make our worst medical nightmares come true than two M. Ds.....writer-director Michael Crichton ("Jurassic Park" ) and best selling author Robin Cook, who specialized in hair-raising page turners about the horrors and dangers of the latest in medicine.
The two docs will check you in to Boston Memorial Hospital....whether you check out again is debatable. It seems that some of the routine surgeries of otherwise healthy patients go terrible awry, leaving them brain dead. Then these poor suckers. reduced to veggies. get shipped off to the mysterious remote Jefferson Institute. Overseen by a creepy Nurse Ratched wanna-be Mrs. Emerson (Elizabeth Ashley, it's a forbidding corporate fortress where the barely alive bods hang on wires like a fresh meat cafeteria. But unbeknownst to their loved ones, they're only hangin' out (literally) for the harvesting of their still vital organs to the highest bidders,.
Yikes. And double yikes.......
Fear not! Plucky, feisty surgical resident Dr. Wheeler (Genivieve Bujold), smells a rat, especially when one of her best friends comes out of minor surgery turned into a veggie organ buffet. But in turning herself into Doc Nancy Drew to get to the bottom of things, she pisses off all her colleagues, earning disbelief and gentle, patronizing rebukes from Chief Of Surgery Dr. Harris (Richard Widmark.) and her on-and-off boyfriend, fellow doctor Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas, killing time in a worthless role).
Doc Wheeler really confirms there's evil afoot, when yet another prime specimen (young Tom Selleck!) ends up in on the veggie pile. Off she goes to sneak into the insidious Institute for a peek at the body inventory. Before Mrs. Emerson and security can nab her, she cleverly escapes, having already dodged a hitman who chased her around the hospital.
But ,as we knew it would happen, our dauntless doc runs afoul of the film's true villain and finds herself in a sudden stupor and.....uh-oh...prepped for surgery, on her way to the O. R. temple of doom.
I always found this movie loads of fun to watch. Michael Crichton was no Hitchcock for sure, but he knew his modern medicine, knew how it could scare the crap out of you and did a competent enough job of effectively putting it all on film.
By today's standards, the climax might come across as rushed, corny and condescending to its female lead.....(you start to realize there's little difference between Bujold's peril and those women tied to railroad tracks in silent films.....)
But with this attractive, talented and veteran cast (including Rip Torn as a crabby coroner), it remains entertaining and highly watchable. 4 stars (****) (extra bonus - a Jerry Goldsmith score) Grab you popcorn and thermometer.......
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