THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) movie

Genre              |   Supernatural Thriller

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |  96 minutes

Released         |  December 2016

cast

Brian Cox ... Tommy
Emile Hirsch ... Austin
Ophelia Lovibond ... Emma
Olwen Kelly ... Jane Doe

director

​André Øvredal

writer

​Ian B. Goldberg ... (written by) (as Ian Goldberg) &
Richard Naing ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Roman Osin

music

Danny Bensi
Saunder Jurriaans

film editor

Peter Gvozdas
Patrick Larsgaard ​

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box office result

Worldwide             not available  

Australia                 not available

North America       not available

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the best dialogue

Trooper Cole: Sheriff, you gotta get down here.
Sheriff Burke: We got an ID on her?
Trooper Cole: No, sir. No relation to Paul and Carol.
Lieutenant Wade: Who's she?
Sheriff Burke: Well, for now, she's a Jane Doe.

Tommy: This amount of lung damage, though, I'd expect the body to be covered in third degree burns. It's like finding a bullet in a brain, but with no gunshot wound.

Tommy: Let's get the fuck out of here.

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THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) MOVIE IMAGES

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THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

​A family has been massacred in their own house, the setting of a grisly crime in small-town Virginia. Hidden in the basement, the partially buried body of a murdered woman is discovered. Drawn into the mysterious case, coroner Tony Tilden (Brian Cox, The Bourne Identity) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch, Milk) conduct an otherwise routine late-night autopsy on the unidentified corpse.

But as the night crawls on, the autopsy becomes more complex than they ever imagined and the two men discover less about the victim and more about their own primal fears. Trapped in their own basement, haunted by the many creepy apparitions that penetrate the darkness and surrounded by the evil unknown, the coroners will need more than a simple scalpel to survive this night of visceral terror.

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 10 December 2016
Pop ​Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Andre Ovredal’s THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE is a claustrophobic, slow-burn supernatural thriller that succeeds off the back of its two lead performances and its principal setting. Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch play Father and Son, Tommy and Austin Tilden, small town morgue operators who become reluctant participants in an ancient ritualistic murder that dates back to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Like 2016’s other standout Horror/Thriller DON'T BREATHE, THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE’s principal morgue setting becomes a character itself and Director Ovredal maximises the opportunity to ratchet up the suspense through great visuals highlighted by tight closeups that allow his leading men to deliver performances far beyond what might be expected of a small, independent Horror film.

The film opens with a gruesome murder scene in a mild-looking suburban home. Sheriff Sheldon (Michael McElhatton) is at a loss to explain what exactly has happened.

Matters become even more difficult to explain with the discovery of a pristine, naked female corpse in the basement of the house. The half-buried corpse has no apparent cause of death and no form of identification; the titular Jane Doe (Olwen Kelly). The Sheriff decides the body should be sent to Tilden’s Morgue for further examination...

Tommy and Austin are just finishing up when Austin’s girlfriend Emma (Ophelia Lovibond) arrives for their date that evening. Emma decides she wants to find out a little bit more of what Austin does but he’s reluctant to show her. He tells her that there’s “things you can't unsee” and that his Dad will kill him if he caught her looking at the cadavers.

Not realising Tommy has been watching their exchange unfold, he makes his presence known, offering Emma the opportunity to take a closer look. Emma asks why there’s a bell tied to one of the corpse’s toes. Tommy tells her that it's an old tradition to make sure that the person was dead and not just in a coma. Emboldened, Emma leans forward to pull the sheet back from a corpse that is missing its face but she is scared out of her wits just as she's about to, as Austin sneakily rings the bell on its toe. It's enough for Emma to lose interest and decide that she and Austin should get going. Just as they do, the Sheriff arrives with Jane Doe.

​Upstairs in their house, Austin says he can't leave his Dad to do the autopsy on his own and decides to head back down into the morgue to help him. He tells Emma to come back at 11pm; they should be finished by then...

The opening minutes of THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE do a great job of setting up what follows in the course of the film’s polite 96 minute running time. The film’s writers, Ian B. Goldberg and Richard Naing, have been working primarily in television on such shows as TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, ONCE UPON A TIME and DEAD OF SUMMER.

Their adherence to plot is evidence of this...

There’s great economy in what the pair write and no dialogue is wasted in moving the story forward in unravelling the mystery of Jane Doe. For genuine Horror fans there will be recognition of genre tropes, but Director Ovredal doesn't fall into the habit of relying too much on one type of scare tactic to elicit viewer response.

Even with a plot-driven story, JANE DOE’s biggest asset is veteran Scottish character actor Brian Cox. The film’s production team must have surely pinched themselves when he signed on to play Tommy Tidlen. His wonderful Scottish brogue is slightly altered for this role, but he’s all class in this role and he brings Emile Hirsch up to his level, resulting in a great Father and Son combination.

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE doesn’t flinch from depicting the more grisly aspects of the autopsy process and it uses the presence of the deceased to great effect in the film’s second half as the supernatural elements of the story are revealed. Ovredal and his actors never fall into the trap of sensationalising the circumstance, as both Cox and Hirsch seek to understand what is happening.

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE is a well constructed film with great central performances and a story that has more substance to it than the usual genre jump-scare productions that have become far too commonplace in the Horror genre.

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