A father-and-son morgue team gets a body that refuses to behave like a body, and André Øvredal builds 86 minutes of dread out of that single premise. The Autopsy of Jane Doe premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2016, and IFC Midnight released it on December 21, 2016. It grossed $6 million at the box office.
Trailer, via Independent Film Company.
Tommy and Austin Tilden
Brian Cox plays Tommy Tilden, the county coroner, and Emile Hirsch plays his son Austin. Austin has a date planned with his girlfriend Emma, played by Ophelia Lovibond, and he postpones it to help his father finish the night’s work. That is the whole setup. Two men, one corpse, one locked room, and a promise to meet Emma later that evening.
The Body From Grantham County
Sheriff’s deputies find the half-buried corpse of an unidentified woman in the basement of a Grantham County, Virginia house, the scene of an inexplicable multiple homicide. No forced entry. The victims died trying to escape. Olwen Kelly plays Jane Doe, and she spends the film on a slab, motionless.
What the Autopsy Finds
The details pile up against reason. Her waist shows long-term corset use, out of fashion for centuries. No rigor mortis, blood still flowing, yet cloudy eyes. Shattered wrist and ankle bones, a severed tongue, a missing molar, blackened lungs, stab wounds across her organs. Jimsonweed, a paralysing agent native to New England, sits in her stomach. The radio starts changing stations on its own.
Roman Numerals and a Missing Tooth
Tommy finds the missing tooth in her stomach, wrapped in cloth marked with Roman numerals, letters and an odd diagram. The same symbols are carved inside her skin. The lights explode. The other corpses in the morgue vanish. The elevator is broken. Rotten Tomatoes calls it “a smart, suggestively creepy thriller,” and that phrase earns its keep.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| The autopsy begins | Jane Doe delivered to the morgue |
| That evening | Austin postpones his date with Emma |
| Later | Radio changes stations |
| Later still | Tooth recovered from the stomach |
| After | Lights explode; other corpses missing |
| After | Elevator found broken |
The Coroner’s Procedure
The film works because it stays small. Øvredal, directing his first English-language film, keeps the camera close and lets Cox and Hirsch carry the fear through procedure rather than spectacle. Every incision is a new fact, and every fact makes the room smaller.
Where It Stands
The film’s problem is the back half. Once the symbols and the jimsonweed and the missing corpses arrive, the mystery stops being a puzzle and becomes a haunting, and hauntings are cheaper than puzzles. The restraint that made the first hour sting gets spent. The tagline promises “Every body has a secret.” The body delivers. The ending does not quite.
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