“We're all on the same conveyer belt, Nate. Some of us fall off a bit sooner than the rest, but... we're all heading for the same destination.”

As short form horror film-making goes, nothing has satisfied me much more than this outstanding episode of the Cabinet of Curiosities series. Its rock solid foundation is the deep warmth and authenticity of the relationship between Sheriff Craven (Glyn Turman) and Dr Carl Winters (F. Murray Abraham) which is set up so elegantly in their first couple of scenes together. 

From here, we delve into the shocking mystery of this mining community and an inexplicable act of violence. As we dig deeper, Craven suggests an insoluble conundrum - “one of those nightmare specials. The kind you never get to the bottom of.” But as Winters methodically starts peeling back the skin, and subcutaneous fat, and then cuts into the exsanguinated organs, the narrative has more clarity in store for us.

Although not based on a Lovecraft text, there’s a strong kinship here to that sort of material. And if you’ve ever felt the urge to understand just what old HPL was getting at when he used terms like “unspeakable” and “abominable”, The Autopsy makes a damn good stab of it. And it’s some truly horrifying shit.