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In the end, “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” makes for one more vivid nightmare in a good year for horror films. This thriller portrays the merger of concept-driven cinema with strong character work from the film’s leads, as is the case with many classic horror movies in 2016. Horror, which has emerged as one of the most effective genres of personal storytelling for independent filmmakers, has seen a spike in performance-centric narratives, resulting in exceptional acting performances in “The Witch,” “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House,” “Don’t Breathe,” and many more. Though the premise of “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” would serve as an engaging campfire tale, it was the outstanding performance of Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox that made this film effective.
The actors portray a father and son that have one of the most inherently chilling professions one can have; working in a morgue. The initial scenes set the tone perfectly. Although the two men are playful, the old one seems to know a lot more than what the young one is familiar with. People who are into Forensic Files and Autopsy will definitely love the notion that these two can read a story from a body.
What is Jane Doe’s story going to be? The movie actually starts in one of the few scenes outside of the morgue, as the detectives look around in a house with many brutally murdered bodies. There’s a disassembled family in the house, but the strangest thing they find is a naked woman buried in the basement. She is an odd mess – and unlike everyone else, she is perfectly fine. How did she end up dead? Who is this lady? She appears on our coroners’ table and begins to narrate her tale. She is an utter mess and a great deal is happening in her mind. She appears to have been bound and abused before death. Sometime in her life, someone also burned her. To add to the confusion, she has always looked perfect on the outside. And then things begin to become intricately strange.
The director of the cult classic “Troll Hunter” begins the film with a thrilling atmosphere during the first hour. He sets some beautifully crafted devices into motion, as when Cox narrates how they used to Bell dead bodies just to check if they were actually dead and not in a coma. As horror fans, we all know that during the 30-minute mark after the bell starts playing, it will indeed have a frightening effect. It’s a fantastic device, like when a haunted house movie allows us to witness the door that creaks open by itself at night, but is silent during the day. There is a perfect set up and pay off structure between the first and second acts of the film. The tension rises and the eeriness increases as we begin to figure out who Jane Doe is. The Autopsy of Jane Doe is in fact an excellent haunted house movie, but instead, the house is the morgue. Furthermore, having two astounding actors such as Hirsch and Cox is invaluable. They make the impossible, believable and terrifying all at once.
This is the case for an hour of the 86-minute running time, and then “Jane Doe” turns up the crazy dial and races towards a conclusion which doesn’t completely make sense and lacks character development. It’s common for horror movies to be more chilling when setting the scene, rather than during the climax of the film. A whispered boo is much scarier than a scream in your face. So, it is fortunate that “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” was so clever and well done during the first hour that it makes the faults of the finale easy to forgive.
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