Verdict:
Western horror movies are rarely celebrated for their artistic excellence, or common sense…or subtlety. However, this movie manages to rise above the muddy pool of modern horror movies. It still fails to stay coherent all the way though, but you can’t have it all.
The plot revolves around the discovery of a mysterious corpse, with a father-and-son team of medical examiners gradually uncovering strange things about it. The story is not this movie’s strong suit. As the movie progresses, the events make increasingly less sense. The ending helps explain some of it but not all. The movie tries not to draw attention to the imperfections in the story by simply not addressing certain questions and keeping things a mystery, which is a smart move that works in its favour.
What this movie does quite well is establish and follow through. A number of elements and characters are introduced, and all of those scenes pay off later on.
One of the film’s major strengths lies in its casting of Brian Cox in a lead role. They guy does a very good job at bringing life and death to this film. The movie invests time in developing the relationships between the father, his son, and the son’s girlfriend. It takes its time to show the differences between the two main leads. Taking the time to establish everything and then following up on the promises made, brings depth to this film.
There is a subtlety to the ambiance of the coroner office that you wouldn’t expect from a movie like this, and which adds class.
Although the movie succumbs to the temptation of relying on jump scares, these moments are relatively restrained It also avoids excessive gore (if you don’t count the autopsy itself), relying instead on suspense and mystery to keep the viewer’s attention. Because of this, and the medical angle, this movie feels like an episode of X-Files, and just like many of the X-Files episodes, it asks you to not think that hard about everything you see and hear, as you start wondering if the story couldn’t have been organised more effectively and with less runtime. Ultimately, while The Autopsy of Jane Doe begins with a promising mystery and good atmosphere, its conclusion is disappointingly conventional. The film can’t escape the simplistic tendencies of modern horror, and the ending fails to live up to the intrigue. Nevertheless, it offers enough moments of quality to rise above an average horror movie.