Autopsy of Jane Doe, The (2016) [Blu-ray]
Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline: Every body has a secret.

Its just another night at the morgue for a father (Brian Cox) and son (Emile Hirsch) team of coroners, until an unidentified, highly unusual corpse comes in. Discovered buried in the basement of the home of a brutally murdered family, the young Jane Doeeerily well preserved and with no visible signs of traumais shrouded in mystery. As they work into the night to piece together the cause of her death, the two men begin to uncover the disturbing secrets of her life. Soon, a series of terrifying events make it clear: this Jane Doe may not be dead. The latest from Trollhunter director Andre Ovredal is a scarily unpredictable, supernatural shocker that never lets up.

Storyline: Cox and Hirsch play father and son coroners who receive a mysterious homicide victim with no apparent cause of death. As they attempt to identify the beautiful young "Jane Doe," they discover increasingly bizarre clues that hold the key to her terrifying secrets.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson, May 7, 2017 During its first half, The Autopsy of Jane Doe sets up to be a most effective and creepy little horror film to such a degree that it's disappointing it can't sustain that level for the rest of the picture. An audience favorite at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal's (TrollHunter) second feature opens in the bucolic town of Grantham, Virginia where a police unit is entering an abandoned house full of mass carnage. A grisly slaughter has taken place and as the camera roves downstairs, Sheriff Burke (Michael McElhatton) and his team uncover the gaunt but pristine nude body of a woman that they can't place within the scene of the crime. After the bodies are taken out, we are led into the underground lair of the Tilden Morgue & Crematorium. Coroner Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch), the Assistant Medical Technician, are conducting an autopsy on an incinerated corpse. Øvredal delivers a master class on autopsying analysis in this first section. In concert with cinematographer Roman Osin, the filmmakers examine in fine detail and excruciating minutiae the life of a coroner. Øvredal and Osin employ a variety of shots and angles of framing that establish the pro-filmic space of the morgue and the supine bodies on the slab. (For some odd reason, the scene with the charred body made me think of the scene in Jason Goes to Hell where the coroner examines the master slasher's severed body. But no, neither Tommy nor Austin take a bite out of the dead man's heart in this film!) Øvredal also introduces us to Austin's girlfriend, Emma (Ophelia Lovibond), who takes a surprising curiosity in peaking at one of the corpses. Austin is immediately apprehensive about opening one of the storage doors and lifting up the white sheet to reveal a deceased specimen but his father accommodates Emma's request. Austin has long-term aspirations to leave the morgue (perhaps start a life with Emma) and not follow in his father's footsteps.

As Austin and Emma are about to go out on a date, Burke comes with the late-night arrival of "Jane Doe," the mysterious figure found in the basement earlier. The sheriff notifies Tommy that the autopsy must be completed by morning so he can file his report. This spoils Austin's evening as he goes back to work with his father. Tommy and Austin discover several extraordinarily unusual things about Doe's body. She suffered wrist and ankle fractures yet there are no visible bruises or scars on the outside. Even more unusual are the burns inside of her that would go undetected if one takes a glimpse at her perfectly normal chest. The coroner also extracts a white cloth from within her containing an ancient symbol and the Roman numerals for a Bible verse. Also, strange happenings begin occurring in the morgue. A large retro radio box repeatedly plays the fifties pop song "Open Up Your Heart" by The Hamblens. The doors to the refrigeration units start popping out. Before father and son can get a handle on the predicament, the electricity in the building goes out.

It is at the juncture in which Tommy and Austin try to seek outside help that I think The Autopsy of Jane Doe takes too many detours and succumbs to genre trappings. For example, there is the scene where they board the old-fashioned elevator and Tommy senses someone is there to attack them. Audiences have seen this red herring play out better in other films and the end result is neither convincing nor satisfying. Part of the blame goes to co-writers Ian B. Goldberg and Richard Naing, who craft dubious and highly questionable motives for their two protagonists. For instance, although Tommy initially recalls that part of Jane Doe's condition also occurred in someone else that he performed an autopsy, he realizes that her case is way outside he and his son's realm. Why didn't they call Sheriff Burke's office earlier to inquire about the availability of a CSI team that would be better trained to handle these exceptional cases? Øvredal needed to open up the story more. The director had a tight budget to work with and wanted to make the most of a confined, claustrophobic setting. However, some scene changes could have improved the story's fidelity while still retaining the supernatural elements. Moreover, there are underdeveloped relationships and subplots left hanging. Tommy recounts a solemn backstory to Austin about his late wife suffering from a form of manic depression but Øvredal tries unsuccessfully to connect it with the spiritual history of Jane Doe. The father/son dynamic is well-constructed for the first hour or so but then gets lost in the maelstrom of thriller clichés and plot conveniences.

Øvredal and Osin probably studied John Carpenter's use of off-screen space in The Fog (1980) and Prince of Darkness (1987). Indeed, there is a dark scene in a long hallway where there may be the walking dead and this will remind one of the roaming shipwrecked lepers in The Fog. But The Autopsy of Jane Doe is more derivative of Carpenter's works than it is a faithful homage to them. Aesthetically in design and composition Øvredal's film is analogous to Carpenter's underrated and superior The Ward (2010).

Despite these criticisms and shortcomings, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is still pretty good thanks to solid chemistry between Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch. Hirsch's off-screen troubles have been well-documented but when he finds a project suitable to his talents, he can be quite good as he is here. Cox is virtually flawless as the coroner. I can only wish that Goldberg and Naing had made the material seem as fresh in the second half as they do in the first.

After a strong first half, The Autopsy of Jane Doe loses its focus by relying too much on formulaic genre tropes. It's still a fairly solid film and fans of Cox and Hirsch will want to give it a look. We also recommend The Babadook and The Witch. Scream Factory delivers an excellent transfer but the audio encoding on the lossless 5.1 track could have been bolstered and also given a maxed out bitrate. The disc only has trailers and TV spots to offer in the way of extras. Give the movie a RENTAL first before considering a purchase.

[CSW] -1.8- Does the genuine novelty of the theme our weigh the protracted gore (it is an autopsy after all) coupled with the unrealistic horror effects, that are used to drive that story? The gore doesn't create the horror, and the horror effects just aren't up to the level needed to sustain a horror story. There are realistic characters in the sense that they don't just accept odd circumstances at face value, but they also just don't have the reactions I would expect from what they do find. This is one of the hardest movies for me to rate because it has very high marks for story line development and terrible marks for story line implementation. I think I will just have to accept that I liked the story but genuinely disliked the movie, and it is the movie, not the story, that is being rated.
[V4.5-A3.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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