Father and son coroners find a mysterious unidentified body with no apparent cause of death. As they attempt to examine the beautiful young “Jane Doe,” they discover increasingly bizarre clues that hold the key to her terrifying secrets. If you visit the morgue tonight, you are in for a huge surprise. André Øvredal’s (Trollhunter) wickedly entertaining chiller combines nerve-jangling suspense, graphic methods and blackest humor to test the Constitution’s strongest yet.
Four Virginia residents were found butchered in their own homes. What happened is a mystery. The crime scene contains the primitive corpse of an unknown woman. The police demand an autopsy so Coroner Tommy (Brian Cox) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch) get to work. The first intersection reveals that something is terribly wrong.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a 2016 supernatural horror film directed by Andre Overedal. It stars Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox as a father-son duo who experience the supernatural while examining the body of an unidentified woman (played by Olwen Kelly). This is Øvredal’s first English-language film. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2016, and was released by IFC Midnight on December 21, 2016. It grossed $6 million at the box office. The critical consensus at Rotten Tomatoes called it “a smart, suggestively terrifying thriller”.
Who is Jane Doe?
During Tommy and Austin’s investigation, they conclude that Jane is not a body from the present age. She is the body of a 17th century witch. Tommy also concluded that witches did not exist and that most of the young girls who were burned were innocent and that it was mere mass hysteria of the people of the time. So how is Jane magical if they don’t exist? Jane was not merely burned like suspected witches.
Jane was tortured. He had his tongue cut out, a tooth removed and his mouth forced down, poisoned, ankles and wrists broken, skin torn with ritual marks, lungs burned and his insides bruised. This torture was carried out on this girl in the 17th century. Tommy’s theory is that the ritual of trying to kill a witch produces a witch instead. Jane was a regular girl and the ritual is one that turns into a witch.
The Autopsy Of Jane Doe: Plot Explanation
The body of an unidentified young woman is found at the scene of an unexplained multiple murder. Sheriff Sheldon Burke found no signs of forced entry and Lt. Wade suggested the victims were trying to escape. Emma Roberts visits her boyfriend Austin Tilden and her father Tommy, a small town coroner. Tommy explains that in the past coroners tied bells to corpses to make sure they were dead, not comatose.
Sheriff Burke brings in Jane Doe’s mysterious body and tells Tommy he needs a cause of death by morning. Austin postpones his date with Emma to help his father, promising to meet her later that evening. Tommy and Austin do the autopsy and are quickly confused. There were no outward visible signs of trauma, but she had broken wrists and ankles.
His tongue is crudely cut out, one of his molars is missing, his lungs are blackened as if he’s suffered third degree burns, and his internal organs reveal numerous cuts and scars. Jimsonweed, a paralytic agent not native to the area, is found in its stomach. The condition of most of the corpses suggests that death has just occurred, while the cloudiness of the corpse’s eyes indicates that it has been dead for days.
The Autopsy Of Jane Doe Cast
- Emile Hirsch as Austin Tilden
- Brian Cox as Tommy Tilden
- Ophelia Lovibond as Emma Roberts
- Michael McElhatton as Sheriff Sheldon Burke
- Olwen Kelly as Jane Doe
- Jane Perry as Lieutenant Wade
- Parker Sawyers as Trooper Cole
- Mary Duddy as Irene Daniels
- Mark Phoenix as Louis Tannis
The Autopsy Of Jane Doe Review
Aside from the odd mobile phone and rude curse word here and there, The Autopsy of Jane Doe could have sprung from the mind of Edgar Allan Poe. Although it’s set in the present, director André Overedal’s first English-language film has a macabre, gothic tone that makes it almost timeless. Somewhere in Virginia, a family is found dead in their own home, the crime scene bloody and the door locked from the inside.
The mystery deepens when the police enter the basement: there, partially buried in the ground, is the body of a young woman. Keen to find the cause of death, the police bag the woman’s body and take it to the local mortuary – a family-run business run by Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch). Øvredal previously brought us the entertaining and stylish Norwegian fantasy trollhunter, and he brings a similar sense of style and atmosphere to this lean and engaging horror flick.
Set almost entirely in the basement mortuary. A building that looks like it’s barely changed in 100 years, The Autopsy of Jane Doe rears its head in claustrophobia and tension. Roman Osin’s moving cinematography and detailed. Oppressively chaotic set design are key, but the chemistry between Cox and Hirsch is key: it’s unusual to see a father-son dynamic in a horror-mystery. And there’s a believable familiarity and warmth between the two actors.
