The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Review

"There used to be a time it was hard to tell a comatose person from a dead one, so coroners tied bells to everybody in the morgue."- Tommy

Tommy and Austin Tilden are a father and son autopsy team, said business being conducted in the basement of their isolated house in the rural boonies of Trumps' Americana. They are finishing up for the night, Austin has a dare with his gal Emma, when Sheriff Burke arrives with a body that he needs answers on before the press descend like vultures the next day. The body is of a young unidentified female, hence Jane Doe, who has been discovered in the basement of a local house. Seems the Police were alerted to the house due to the massacre of all it's inhabitants, who appear to have been trying to get out of Dodge like yesterday.

Naturally Tommy is prepared to help his mate the Sheriff and naturally Austin can't just abandoned dad, so they get the band back together and start the process of trying to discover how the Jane Doe left this mortal coil. Immediately weird things start happening, and as the duo dig deeper into the meat they discover some really disturbing damage to the body, including severed tongue, burnt lungs, broken wrists and ankles, and a whole bunch of even less appealing body damage. Unfortunately the weirdness is also escalating and pretty soon Hell has come to visit. Ready to watch a retro style flick that will have you squirming, lets pick up the scalpel and start cutting into this bad boy.

Norwegian Director André Øvredal had us happier than lambs in spring pasture with his first major, the mockumentary Troll Hunter. With Jane Doe, the Director's first English language outing, we are heading into new territory and that territory would be out and out horror as the Director attempts to freak the hell out of the audience with tension and atmosphere rather than slam dunking us with the normal horror tactics. Basically we are almost talking a two shot in a single location, now you can either make that work or it ends up being something of a chore for the audience to get through. Director Øvredal chooses to go old style in almost a classic Italian fashion and pulls off one of the great cult movies of 2018.

Let's talk the gore quota the movie ladles on which might take a few viewers well out of their comfort zones. For a generation growing up on Law & Order, CSI and the like the realism is going to be a hell of a shocker. Tommy and Austin aren't going all flashy and cool, they are actually cutting into a body as opposed to whatever the Television shows are doing, and the information they glean is hard to come by and confusing as opposed to the obvious and simple explanations the last of the television generations are presented with. In Jane Doe we are talking the blood flowing and the flesh on the realistic side of the slab as opposed to the sanitised presentations of commercial mainstream television. If you can handle this aspect, and Øvredal doesn't pull away from the slicing and dicing in graphic detail then you are going to be rocking to this fable of mounting darkness.

Primarily the Director wants to involve the audience in a mystery murder situation and to then start layering on the horror aspects. Øvredal kicks things off in high gear with a multiple murder scene, seems an extended family were massacred in Americana suburbia and all indications were there was a massed attempt to exit the house that is drenched in blood though the doors and windows remained secure against the exit stage left attempts. The local Sherriff is clearly confused as to what his team are seeing and this is only heightened with the discovery of a young woman's body partially buried in the basement. How she got there, what happened to her, and how this ties into a well-known local family has the local law chief scrambling for answers as the media herd arrive like a pack of hyenas. Naturally the only answers from a "silent witness" are going to be by determining how she died, hello the Tilden family autopsy basement business.

Settle in for a solid amount of body slicing as Tommy attempts to determine the cause of death, during which the freaky deaky starts infiltrating the lab. As father and son dig deeper into the case, both figuratively and literally, the mystery deepens, the Jane Doe shows multiple possible causes of death, none of which seem scientifically plausible. Strange things are happening around the autopsy and the creeping unease you are feeling watching the movie is definitely a tactic being employed by director Øvredal. This is a strange mixture of traditional horror, seeping under the audience's defenses, and modern visceral shock tactics. For mine it works like a brought thing, Øvredal just keeps tightening the screws, and to be honest we are heavily into psychological horror rather than surprisingly blood and guts being sprayed on the screen.

As stated above somewhere when the supernatural does waft onto the screen it's very much in the Italian sensibilities end of Horror town. Directors like Argento, Bava, and Fulci would be proud of what is happening here and no doubt would be happy to point out their respective influences on Jane Doe. There's this surreal feeling to things as odd noises are heard, the dead apparently get up and start shambling, and all manner of creepiness starts happening. I was actually applauding this old school approach, and yeah was kind of on the edge of my seat as things are dimly seen, happen in the background, or someone heads off to investigate the latest rattling of chains. Right here, right now, director Øvredal got under my skin and when a couple of twists happen you are like holy cow Bro!

The added cherry on this particular sundae is everything was believable, due no doubt to Øvredal focusing on the mundane before taking it downtown to shock city central. There's nothing coming out of left field and pretty much the movie adheres to its constructed internal logic. The Director knows how to construct a horror outing and Jane Doe is a pleasure to immerse yourself in after enduring either the latest Eli Roth attempt to shock you or Rob Zombie ripping off previous movies with completely unoriginal horror fodder that only appeals to Zombie fanbois.

Brian Cox (Tommy) is pretty much turning into an everyman of modern horror, and given his performance here is definitely a go to guy for horror roles. The dude is like knocking it out of the ballpark. Emmile Hirsch (Austin) and Ophelia Lovibond (Emma) aren't doing their reputations any damage either, good performances from both Actors. I'm not quite sure what to call Olwen Catherine Kelly's (Jane Doe) role to be honest. All she had to do was sit back and think of mother England beyond a slight twitch of fingers on one hand late in the movie. Guess it wasn't the most pleasant role she has had thus far in her career, so no foul I would imagine.

The year saw a couple of fantastic movies in the same sub-genre, no spoiler's folks, and Jane Doe is very much the underrated cousin to the big hit of the year. While there isn't anything you can pin your horror tactics on Director Øvredal has this mounting chills things happen as the revelations start to be made as to what Tommy and Austin are dealing with. There's a traditional feeling kids, like this could have been an Italian outing via Hammer, and a conviction by the Director to keep it old school and well away from Boredwood gimmick factory, which we should all be heartily sick of by now. Full old school recommendation, if you love horror then you are going to dig The Autopsy of Jane Doe, dig on in with relish people.