The Autopsy of Jane Doe

The first "forensic" half in the style of "conversations at the autopsy table" is very fresh and exciting, the second begins to use on more familiar genre tropes and uses shabby jump scares. Exchanges of views between father and son are sometimes engulfed by rigor mortis, and the final revelation is not exactly from the "what you don't hear about every Halloween" category, but the rather skillful directing and good atmosphere push it through the kiln door with triumph. André Øvredal did not disappoint, just another crunchy story, this time sprinkled with formaldehyde and conducted in a sharp sagittal spirit. By the way, it's a movie that awakens the necrophile in someone. A little bit. (27/12/2016)

I hope André Øvredal will start working at a faster pace, because I don’t want to wait another six years for his next genre piece. Both of his films so far, Troll Hunter and now The Autopsy of Jane Doe, are great examples of how to bring something original to the horror genre. They aren’t revolutionary game-changers, rather, they slightly alter and playfully appropriate templates, which is more than enough. On top of that, this film is directed with a firm hand, the camera navigates the interiors of the morgue with grace, and some sequences are text-book examples of how to create tension and horror scenes. The characters are likeable and don’t behave too stupidly, and the core mystery manages to reliably arouse and maintain the curiosity. I won’t pretend the film doesn’t have any weak elements (for me, it was the reveal, when the characters suddenly unravel the mystery and everything is explained to the viewer – IMHO, it would have been better to just tap on the details and let the viewers figure things out for themselves), but overall I’m very satisfied. (21/12/2016)

I'm having an early Christmas today. The Autopsy of Jane Doe is one of the highlights of this year and I didn't expect it to be the unbeatable number one this year, and I've seen the trailer at least 20 times!! Only an absolute cretin and a spineless motherf*cker can have any complaints here. The film skillfully mixes several horror elements, so everyone from a glutton for guts to a person craving for scares or atmosphere will find a taste for it and that's how it should look like! The whole horror is heavily mysterious and I personally can't think of a more interesting idea than an unidentified corpse that is full of surprises, puzzles and mystery. Strongly engaging from the start, the atmosphere downright steals your breath in places, the music gets under your skin and the captivating visuals push your eyeballs out. I found the dissection itself more entertaining than any other gore orgy. The main characters are professionals in their field and you believe and agree with all their claims. The final denouement warmed my heart and it is definitely not a nice film but a very bleak and cold one. Confident, purposeful and very skilled filmmaking of a kind that is very rare in horror. The quality of the film could be compared to a 30 year old Rum. The only thing that pisses me off here is that the film is too good. I'm sending a 100 euro donation to the director so I can have a sequel for next Christmas. Story 8/10, Atmosphere 10/10, Gore 8/10, Visuals 9/10, Action6/10, Suspense 9/10, Humour 0/10. Entertainment 9/10, Scares 7/10. 100%. (20/12/2016)

This is a filmed handbook for aspiring horror filmmakers. Øvredal sticks to tradition like a pathologist to a scalpel. He knows where the line between light and shadow lies, and at the same time he has a clear idea that even if you routinely cut into corpses for a couple of decades, you're still a person with a distinctive character at your core. We get all this for at least the first hour. The final twenty minutes are very clumsy, both in the denouement and in the presentation, where I would have cut down on the literalness of the images and the biblical quotations. It was still fairly decent, though. (15/01/2017)

Good idea, great execution and moderate runtime that helps the atmosphere, thanks to which the viewer does not get bored. Ugly, a mystery, an autopsy, corpses, darkness, a thunderstorm... ask yourself who could resist such a horror invitation, right? Ummm.... Certainly, some of the jump scares were predictable to cheap, but there were also moments that, I think, no one expected, and the gradual unraveling of the whole mystery was very entertaining to me. Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch are great. (29/12/2018)