The Autopsy of Jane Doe
UK/USA 2016
Written by Ian Goldberg & Richard Naing
Directed by André Øvredal
Watched on 06.05.2017

“The Autopsy of Jane Doe” is a nice, classical, straight-forward horror film with a cool setup and a great buildup of tension. I very much enjoyed it. Granted, I wouldn’t have needed the scene with the accidental murder, since that’s such a stale cliché by now. Some of the jump scares were a little predictable. And witch-themed horror films are always a little problematic for me. However, like “The Witch”, “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” circumnavigated that troublesome area quite nicely, and the way they dealt with the witch-thematic worked quite well for me. The cast is also great. Both Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch arguably bring more to their roles than was written in the script, thus proving once again that great actors can improve a film considerably. But it wasn’t just their individual performances, but also their chemistry; I definitely believed them to be father and son. Special mention also has to go out to Olwen Catherine Kelly, who probably had one of the most thankless acting jobs in the history of films, and manages to achieve a lot by doing next to nothing. The movie further profits from the fact that André Øvredal definitely knows how to create tension. He might have relied on jump scares a little bit too much for my personal taste, but at least, he knows how to use them, and builds them up real nicely, instead of just relying on loud noises. And even though it takes a couple of unexpected twists and turns, I also liked the story. Overall, while “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” might not be a modern classic, it managed to entertain me from start to finish. Which is more than I can say about a lot of other (horror-)movies that I’ve seen this year.
8/10

IMDB