MOVIE REVIEW – André Øvredal’s first English-language film, the director is famous for his Norwegian movie titled Trollhunters, which was a found footage movie about a bunch of University Students roaming around the wilderness of Norway. It was a rather popular, and well-received movie, and had a few interesting concepts, but enough about the past let us see what this director brings to the table with the help of Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox… plus a dead body.

 

The Autopsy of Jane Doe starts with a crime scene, a family dead, and the entire house nearly covered in blood. It all feels like a break in and entry gone wrong, but as the cops note, it seemed like they were trying to get out. In the basement, they find the body of a dead women whose’s body is sent to the morgue, as the town Sheriff asks resident town coroner to figure out the death of this women. As she is the only part that does not fit into the whole murder rampage of Douglas’s home. She is taken to the coroner, and that is where things get disgusting.

Paging Doctor House!

Well, that’s enough of the story, I guess you’re expecting me to tell you how gruesome the deaths are, or how balls to the wall horror action this movie is. Luckily this movie has none of those! Instead, it reminded me a lot of 2016’s hit horror movie called Don’t Breathe, in which the scenes were slow, yet perfectly disgusting. In André Øvredal’s movie, the scenes are slow, meticulous, and the characters go to great length to explain what is exactly being cut out of the “poor” woman. In fact, nearly first half of the movie is almost entirely shots of the dead body being torn to pieces by the two medical technicians. There are no jump scares, and it is full of body, and shock horror, as the two operates on the girl’s body to figure out how she died.

While spooky sound effects and visuals loom throughout the movie, they never hit the audience over the head. The entire film is claustrophobic and plays with the senses of the viewer. The whole movie takes place in a Morgue, and they use the location efficiently. The gore is mixed in with a huge amount of dread. The dead eyes of the Jane Doe, the slow and effective way of showing how they cut up the body to figure out why the girl died.

It is such a tense, and entertaining movie however….

GENERIC GHOST #19830

The second half or at least the last forty minutes of this grand 90-minute escapade has a sudden drop in quality in my eyes. It does not make the movie horrible, but the director of a previously enjoyable film decides to pull a few too familiar tropes that ruin the interesting premise. While the first half was a gripping, and disgusting mystery, the second half choose to pull a few contrived scenes, where a certain character’s fate was badly telegraphed.

Speaking of fate, while there are blood and gore, it never goes into overkill against the main characters. Some die, some do not, but all of them in stupid ways, but I guess when looking back at the motivation of the ghost it does make sense on how some of them die.

In the end, it is still a good movie, but the motivation of Jane Doe would have been better if it was not tied to a generic American Myth.
Spooky Things Happen Here!

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a fun 90-minute romp that is almost as good as Don’t Breathe, but the second half takes away from that true shine regarding horror originality. The script throws in random subplots that end up going nowhere, unfortunately, and even the main plot has a bit of a cliché ending. Still, it is a must see for hardcore horror fans, but even newcomers should enjoy it – just have your expectations lowered.

-Dante-