Writer(s): Ian B. Goldberg and Richard Naing
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox, Ophelia Lovibond and Olwen Kelly
I think I have mentioned before, probably many times, the frustrations I have when films try to explain things that would otherwise be more impactful if they were left alone. It happens far too often in horror movies, as if the filmmakers feel the need to tie up every loose end; in doing so they also often inadvertently talk away everything that was effective to begin with. There are certainly types of movies that need things wrapped up—after all, what would a murder mystery be if the crime or investigation was ignored—but when we're dealing with mysterious things, as we usually are with horror films, then the less said, the better.
It basically goes hand in hand with the common knowledge that the less we, as the audience, are shown, the better. Blair Witch kickstarted that trend by centering the movie around an evil force that we never get a glimpse of, but that we know is all around. Paranormal Activity seconded it years later; it is not a coincidence that both movies are frequently considered some of the scariest mainstream horror movies ever made, and that both exploded out of the gates and did big business at the box office (the less said about the sequels, an unfortunate side effect of a greedy corporate culture, the better).
The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a movie that seems to understand everything that makes a horror movie great—until it can no longer resist the urge to start rambling on, offering up a rather unconvincing theory as to why bad stuff is happening to otherwise good people. It is right around this point that, for the first time in its scant running time, it loosens its grip on the audience; as it turns out, it's the biggest misstep in what is otherwise a masterclass of horror and tension.
The atmosphere of dread doesn't take long to materialize. In a “normal” house in the suburbs of Virginia, lies an unspeakable crime scene: the bodies of several adults are strewn about the house, several of them with large wounds and all of them with severe exterior trauma (in other words, blood is everywhere). But in the basement lies the half-buried body of a nude woman, with no blood surrounding her and no visible injuries. What killed her, and why was she the only one that was left without so much as a single bruise?
The answers to those questions fall into the hands of Tommy Tilden, local coroner, and his son Austin, who's a trained medical technician and his father's right hand man. Austin blows off plans with his girlfriend, Emma, to help his father with the mysterious woman (who has no forms of identification on her and thus is labeled a "Jane Doe"). It is supposed to be a simple autopsy like all the othersm,but things start to go amiss from the moment they go to open her up...lights flicker on and off, the radio station keeps changing stations on its own, and there are weird noises that occur far off in the distance. It's almost as if someone, or something, is trying to prevent them from opening her up to find the secrets hidden within...
If all of this sounds bland, that's because on paper, it is. The film's effectiveness is owed primarily to director André Øvredal, whose last film was 2010's severely underrated low budget epic Trollhunter. It might be a little too early to call him a “master” of the craft, but he must certainly be at the forefront of the current cast of rising stars. The scare tactics Øvredal relies on are the same we're subjected to in any number of tired Hollywood films: long dimly-lit hallways, noises off in the distance, etc. But his skill lies in the way he effectively twists our expectations around; he catches us off guard not by giving us anything new, but simply by not calling attention to his scares. There are no obnoxious string swells in the soundtrack, or fake jumps that negate the mounting intensity; by using a bit of restraint, he gets us to let down our guard, allowing him to pounce with ruthless efficiency. I even called a bit of foreshadowing just from watching the trailer, but the way it was actually executed still sends shivers down my spine.
Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch are fantastic as the father-son duo, but the real star of the show is Olwen Kelly, who plays “Jane Doe”. For being little more than a dead body, she receives an awful lot of screentime, which obviously requires her to be perfectly still, something she pulls off with alarming consistency (apparently this is owed to a strict regiment of yoga, which helped her control her breathing). There have to be at least 100 shots of her face (no exaggeration), with many of them framed the exact same way, but it never loses its effect; in fact, her blank stare gets even more and more creepy as the events surrounding our stars start turning more and more sinister.
And that's how it all comes back to the explanation, which is especially annoying considering the ridiculous events that are allowed to go unexplained. Do we really need some kind of backstory as to why Jane Doe is who she is, and why she got to be that way? Even if we do, this one is so poorly constructed that it really just doesn't make a single lick of sense. Thankfully, it doesn't take up too much time, but it is the only thing that breaks an otherwise solid streak of tension, thus magnifying it even more. Emma, who plays Austin's girlfriend, is also little more than a character of afterthought, included for little to no reason. Even the "payoff" involving her character isn't worth it--she seems thrown in just because it has to be an unwritten rule of cinema that there be at least one living attractive female character in there somewhere.
Despite its minor flaws, this is still required viewing for anyone that likes their horror scary. Unfortunately, the fact that it doesn't completely suck means that it won't be playing at any multiplexes, which are reserved for D-grade (and below) fare that are produced by major studios only to haul in large amounts of cash, at the expense of its audiences' intelligence, and the creators' artistic integrity. If you're a horror fan, be sure to track this one down, though. It's easily one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time.
RATING: 8.5/10
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