A father and son coroner team (Played by Brian Cox and Emile Hersch) have a strange, unidentified corpse brought into their morgue. The woman was found in a house where an entire family was murdered, and has no external signs of a cause of death. Soon they begin their autopsy, and as they proceed they continue to find strange and unexplainable things about the body. Not long after, dark and unnatural occurances start to haunt the two men as they try to piece togehter the puzzle of this Jane Doe’s history.
Autopsy of Jane Doe is a beautifully shot film. The cinematography is gorgeous and the director pulls out some neat camera shots and visual flourishes. Brian Cox turns in a great performance and brings some gravitas to the film. Now, that’s not saying that Hirsch is bad by any means, he brings his usual top notch performance as well. The film has some great practical gore effects to go along with the autopsy, and the atmosphere and tension established is great as well.
I’m doing a quickie on this film, because frankly I am at a loss for what to say about it. It has been hyped out the ass by people online, and I found it…decent. Good performances and direction, great premise too, but…it sorta becomes paint by numbers in the second half. It builds up all this tension and has some incredible pacing, but then hits the halfway point and suddenly feels it has to rush to the finish line.
At that point it starts to throw in some of the good old cliches (Bad guy outside the door, blindly swing axe at him, OOPS it wasn’t the bad guy!”) and it even has the “playing an old children’s song on the radio at an inapropriate time with a bunch of static so it’s scary” bit. There are some incredibly interesting ideas thrown in, but none of them are followed up to a really statisfying extent.
Autopsy of Jane Doe is a solid little flick, especially more so the first half. It’s worth a watch as it can be a bit of a thrill ride, and it’s visuals and performances are top notch. Just try to avoid the massive praise it has gotten in some circles. Perhaps that poisioned my viewing, don’t let it do the same to you.
Verdict: Rent It
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Director: André Øvredal
Writers: Ian B. Goldberg, Richard Naing
Starring: Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch
James had a really hard time writing this one. It can be tough writing about films that you feel to be “Middle of the road”. The ones you love or hate are easier to write about. If he came off sounding too negative, ignore that and give it a shot anyway. It’s not bad at all.
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