31 Days of Modern Horror: The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Today marks Day 3 of our 31 Days of Modern Horror feature to celebrate Halloween. (Or, as we ought to say, Birthdayoween.) The movie we're going to be talking about today is one that hasn't had anywhere near the acclaim it should have had. It's also one Jay and I unanimously agreed would make the list, even though we'd both only seen it once.

What movie is it? The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016).

I really hope you've seen The Autopsy of Jane Doe because, if not, you're missing out on one of the cleverest horror films of a generation. This post is going to be chock-full of spoilers so, if you haven't seen this one yet, go watch it - just don't forget to come back and weigh in when you do.

Okay, let's do this.

 The first time we watched The Autopsy of Jane Doe, we did so without any expectations. We were bored, there was nothing on, and we hadn't seen it. Most of the time when that happens, we end up watching something awful, like A Dark Song or The Lodgers (and so, so many others) so, when you find a gem like Autopsy, you remember it.

"The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a good, different, unusual kind of horror film. It's cleverly thought-out. I've been watching horror films for nearly fifty years and, in that time, I've never seen anything else like this. It's well-acted, it's atmospheric, but it's just something else. It's so different."

Unusually, Autopsy starts after the action. The opening scene is what appears to be police investigating a multiple homicide. You don't really understand the significance of that opening scene until much later, when everything finally starts to fall into place.

The majority of the film takes place at Tilden Morgue and Crematorium, which is run by father and son pair, Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin (Emile Hirsch.) The funeral home looks aged but it's not dingy or dirty. Every town has a funeral home like that, it's familiar.

"It takes a special person to work in a morgue, to be able to root around in someone's body after they're dead. I think you have to be able to turn off emotions in order to cope - unless it's a family member. I don't think anyone could handle that without some kind of emotion. That's why it's important that the two main characters are a father and a son."

At the beginning of the film, a body is found half-buried in the basement. The body - called Jane Doe - is taken to Tilden Morgue where Tommy and Austin begin their investigation. As Tommy reminds his son, they're not interested in the whys of how the bodies came to be bodies, only the hows. His philosophy works only as long as it takes for Jane Doe to be wheeled into their morgue. Their inquiry into how "Jane" died becomes a why. That why, of course, is the film's big reveal.

Ophelia Lovibond's Jane Doe spends the entire movie bare buck naked. It's a horror movie so a whopping dose of nudity isn't all that surprising. In The Autopsy of Jane Doe, however, the nudity is necessary and matter-of-fact. It's not about someone being nude, it's just a dead body and not sexualized in any way. (Nice change, right?)

"Fair play to Ophelia Lovibond for being the best damned corpse ever. Can you imagine getting that call? 'Yeah, we'd like you to, uh, lay there naked. Is that cool with you?' Somehow, though, she pulls it off. They keep going back to that face and, every time they do, it gets creepier - especially as she becomes more and more alive. She gets this sort of smirk that's most unsettling."

"The whole time, you're waiting for her to look at the camera. Just once. But it doesn't give you that. It leaves you hanging, which is so frustrating and very effective at the same time."

It starts out kind of slow but you know shit's about to go down when they go to cut into the corpse.  The lights flicker and the radio turns on. As they progress with their examination, things get worse. A storm starts to brew outside. Thunder rumbles ominously. The radio - which seems to come on and off of its own accord (creepy) warns listeners of the worst weather they've had in years.

Not only does the storm set the mood for the film, it sneaks in an extra punch at the end when the radio, playing in the background and the cavalry arrives, announces the fourth straight day of sunshine in a row. This movie is all about questioning what you think you know - interestingly, what Tommy says his job is.

"The best thing about this movie is that you don't really know where it's going to for a long time. It's careful about how much it gives away and when. Even though you're not entirely certain where it's headed, you're transfixed. It's compelling. You can't look away."

They drop hints: the corpse wore a corset regularly; her lungs were black as if she'd been burned; her organs are scarred... how long did it take you to work it out? If you're a witch, like me, I bet you worked it out before poor Tommy and Austin did. They're terrific actors. You can feel their confusion as the clues pile up. As things go from weird to weirder. Tommy's an experienced pathologist but even he can't see it. You can see the old man piecing things together as he goes. You feel the urgency building.

With a movie about a corpse, set in a morgue, you're gonna have more than nudity; you're gonna have a fair bit of gore. Usually, I'm not good at coping with body gore, but The Autopsy of Jane Doe is different, though. Like Jay said, it's really too intriguing to look away. Besides, it's not like the gore is there for the sake of being gory. It's just as matter-of-fact as the nudity. Everything in this movie is there to move the story along, which is what makes it such a tremendous film.

You expect Jane's body to move as things get worse but it never does. Her body doesn't move - but others do. Some of the most terrifying moments of the film come compliments of the morgue's three other... visitors. There are three corpses in the drawers in Tilden's Morgue when the movie starts and three corpses in the drawers when it ends. What they do and where they go in the meantime, that's a different story.

The best scares occur when the other corpses go for walkabout. For me, the worst was the body with its eyes and mouth sewn shut. *shudder* You see it through a hole in the door, that flesh stretching as it tried to scream. (Guess who's sleeping with the lights on yet again.) There are several moments - like when Tommy gets snatched - that you almost expect to happen but, even though I was waiting for something, it made me jump every time.

And, after all that, Jane Doe hasn't moved. You know she'd to blame but she'd not DOING anything.

"The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a rare horror movie in that their time is your time. They haven't revealed anything to us they haven't revealed to the characters so we're experiencing everything together. It makes their fear more real. 

"André Øvredal, the director, really knows his craft. It's all about lighting and angles. You see what he wants you to see, what you need to see, nothing more or less. The Autopsy of Jane Doe uses light the way some movies use darkness - and it's interesting that, like the house, the lights are old-fashioned. That age - that sense of being from another time - is so important to big reveal. 

"And, although there are moments when it's cast into absolute darkness, it's not a dark movie. It does't rush into shadow like some do. Visually, it's stunning."

There's just so much to say about this movie. I want to spend ages talking about the symbolism of the mirrors (Is what you see real?), about the contrast of evil against a flawless body, and about whether Tommy's assessment of why (going against his own insistence that he doesn't deal in whys) Jane is evil is accurate (which I don't believe it is) but how long can we spend on one post, right?

We have to wrap it up here but be sure to come back tomorrow to see what movie takes our #4 spot.