The Autopsy of Jane Doe: Review (SPOILERS!)

“What happened to you?”

Leviticus 20:7: “Any man or woman who consults with the spirits of the dead shall be put to death. For they are a witch, and their blood shall be on their own hands.”

“This is her revenge. This is her ritual.”

With as much hype as this film got, I was super excited to see it and also bummed that it was one of a handful I missed at Fantastic Fest 2016. 

​It's an above-average horror film with strong character development, great acting, good special effects, superb production, a few jump scares, and interesting turns that keep us intrigued throughout the plotline. If you’re a fan of supernatural horror, this one’s probably for you.

The basic concept itself is unique: while investigating a domestic crime scene, the Sherriff finds a dead body, seemingly unharmed and in remarkably good condition, half-buried in the basement. She’s of no relation to the house owners, no identification, and there’s no sign of forced entry, so he drives her to the Tilden Crematorium as the press will undoubtedly want answers about the mysterious body the following morning. It’s through her autopsy that the secrets of her death and origin are revealed, which turns out to be a hair-raising and supernatural experience.

Character motivations progress as Tommy Tilden, the head of the three generations who have owned and run the facility, states: “Leave the ‘why’ to the cops and the shrinks. We’re just here to define cause of death – no more, no less.” Yet as the night treads on, he’s compelled to surpass his role as the mere forensic pathologist and solve the mystery of Jane’s untimely end. Or is it just the beginning? As Austin states, “If we can just figure out how she died, we can figure out how to stop her.”

Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox are Austin and Tommy Tilden, father and son duo. Tommy serves as the mentor figure, challenging his son to learn at every turn. The mother/wife is deceased, and the resident Crematorium, rat-hunting cat, Stanley, is the only remainder of her existence. Austin is dating girlfriend Emma, and the two have planned a move or get-away unknown to Tommy. Austin berates the idea of being a forensic pathologist for the rest of his life and dismisses following in the footsteps of his father, although he does bear an obligation to Tommy out of family duty and the shared loss of the mother.

Despite Emma’s presence in Austin’s life, she’s never before visited the Crematorium. She’s eager to see a dead body, and Tommy encourages her participation. He explains the bells hung from dead bodies’ wrists, at one time in history meant to indicate that they were in fact still alive. This is also akin to myths and folklore in cemeteries where ghost hunters often claim to hear bells ringing in the distance. It’s a haunting element at play throughout the entire film. Damn that spooky-ass bell!

So Jane’s autopsy begins! There are a slew of injuries: broken wrists and ankles, gray eyes which imply she’s been dead for days yet a body which shows no signs of rigor mortis, an abnormally small waist linked to the usage of a corset (ala Victorian period centuries earlier), blackened lungs, tissue possibly consumed in melanoma, shattered joints, a severed tongue, vaginal trauma, and the lists gets weirder. They ponder sexual servitude or abuse and torture of some kind, but the results are so confounding that they’re unable to arrive at a solid conclusion. Yet.

And her blood. Her nose starts bleeding mid-autopsy after the discovery of a missing tooth, and a fly crawls out of one nostril. When Austin takes a blood sample, it inexplicably overflows and spills onto the refrigerator racks and floor beneath minutes later. What’s up with that?

Father and son have a habit of drawing out their observations on a chalkboard. The deeper they get into the procedure, the more strange things begin happening. The radio begins switching channels and playing by itself, sometimes sounds of a struggle or ominous words, other times a song: “Open up your heart, and let the sunshine in.”

It’s important to note that the mother was called, by Tommy, Ray – as in a ray of sunshine. Always bright and laughing despite her dark surroundings and her suggested misery (it’s implied she committed suicide). Is the playing of this song meant to agonize Tommy? Or is it just a coincidence?

There are weird noises and movements abound throughout the facility after the presence of Jane’s body. And for some reason poor Stanley is affected, Austin finding him hiding and dying in an air duct. Tommy is forced to put him out of his misery by snapping his neck. Is Stanley’s death due to old age? A bad rat? Or because of Jane? But really, as Austin urges, everything that night is all her. It’s all because of Jane.
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They find Jimson Weed in Jane’s gastrointestinal system, a paralysis agent, as well as peat moss beneath her nails and in her hair, which are native to the north and leads us to her origin: the northeast, Salem perhaps?

Then there’s a tooth (the missing molar!), wrapped in a cloth scrawled with odd, ritualistic emblems and roman numerals, buried within her organs.

Okay, so she’s a witch! And she prepared her body with ritualistic objects and scriptures to haunt and torment her assailants, or anyone else who messed with her body throughout the witch hunt of the Salem Trials. She gets credit for fucking with the people who attempted to destroy her but simultaneously has this hardened evilness that eliminates audience empathy. Sorry, Jane, that you were hunted and tortured … but you’re kind of an evil bitch!

The ability to reanimate other dead bodies to serve as minions of her army and then heal her wounds (and actually regrow her removed organs?) suggests that she’s been passed around from house to house, cemetery to cemetery, crematorium to crematorium. Every time she’s found, she appears good as new, only to attack her saviors.

Was this her original intent? To permanently cause the death and torture of anyone who messes with her body? Or was it meant as a defense mechanism to save her from death? Is she dead or undead? Is she trapped in some kind of astral, supernatural plane? It’s more likely that she said, “fuck these bitches, if I’m going out I’m going to make it good,” with no regard for the outcome of anyone, innocent or not, who ends up engaging with her.

At a point we get the classic ghost story plot: what are you trying to tell me about your death that will allow me to help you pass on? It’s a mechanism we hope works positively for Tommy and Austin, but ultimately does not. Jane is sadistic. She’s more concerned with punishing her offenders.

It’s this really that left me slightly dissatisfied. While I wouldn’t have wanted a flashback to her torture and trial where we feel a forced empathy, I would have liked something a bit more intriguing than she’s simply a witch who encased her own body in ritualistic elements that kill anyone who touches her.
I would have rather uttered, “Holy shit, that’s crazy!” than “Oh, okay, she’s a witch.”

But what would have made it more interesting? What would have happened if Tommy and Austin were able to destroy Jane’s body? Would this have given her some kind of release? Does it even matter? I honestly felt an homage to Silence of the Lambs (discovering the Jimson Weed was similar to the cocoon) and the concept of finding clues within the bodies of serial killers’ victims.

Except in this case Jane was the victim of others as well as of herself. Is she satisfied somewhere knowing that her assailants are punished and brutally killed? Or is she living in a state of purgatory? Or has she truly passed on to the next place with no regard for the body she’s left behind which has powers of its own?

Let’s focus on the good: the character development is great. In fact we spend almost the first half of the film building up Austin and Tommy only to witness their demise. I wish we could have felt this strong connection to Jane as well to give the story a deeper level of complexity.

There’s plenty of gore in the sense that we focus on forensic pathologists who spend their waking hours dissecting the dead. And the dead are then brought to life under the spell of Jane. There are dark hallways filled with fog and smoke and reanimated bodies lurking in the shadows.

But we also lack any kind of brutal death scenes. Most often we find the victim already dying after an obscured depiction of the attack. I’m not asking for torture porn here, but a little more explanation than, “I’m evil, and you’re going to die … somehow” would have been appreciated.

Emma’s death scene seems trivial with no clues to her struggle. We feel sympathy mainly for Austin, as we’ve developed more of a bond with him than her.

The autopsy process ends with the brain.

“That’s why we couldn’t find cause of death. She’s still alive!”

“We lit her on fire. We took out her heart.”

“There’s something. There’s some energy – call it what you want. Something is keeping her going.”
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Leviticus 20:7: “Any man or woman who consults with the spirits of the dead shall be put to death. For they  are a witch, and their blood shall be on their own hands.”

I do love that the pair have a vast library that they reference for botany, anatomy or any kind of historical information.

In one of the most brutal scenes, after Tommy implores Jane about helping her, he suffers his limbs and organs being broken and stolen – this is how Jane heals and reforms her body to look unharmed. As Tommy’s bones and joints are broken and torn, we see her incisions and disfigurations heal. We see her eyes return to a healthy brown from gray as the life fades from Tommy.

In the end, everyone dies. And we give it props for that element of darkness. All the reanimated bodies are back in their places when the police return to investigate.

Jane is off to another autopsy, in the same condition as she was originally found – seemingly flawless. The driver defuses his girlfriend, but Jane’s already fucking with the radio.

“Open up your heart, and let she sunshine in. Face it with a grin. Smilers never lose, and frowners never win. So let the sunshine in.”

What’s the significance of the song? Are we to think that Jane carries with her the souls of her taken victims, and that this is Tommy? Or is it just a random song from olden days that coincides with Tommy’s wife and somehow Jane? Or is it just plain creepy? Given that earlier we heard sounds of a struggle and warnings across the radio, it shouldn’t be ruled out that the radio communicates voices of those Jane has taken.

We end with the bell tinkle.

Good luck, Ruxton or VCU! You’re going to need it.
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What do you think? Leave comments below, and thanks for reading!