Hi everyone, Bryan here….
I’m always a sucker for pretty much any horror movie. Rarely though, horror films tend to stick in my mind long after viewing that have a lingering haunting effect that will cause me to sweat or choose not to walk down a dark hallway. I’m happy to say that the fresh and original horror film ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ will terrify me for the coming weeks. Directed by André Øvredal (Trollhunter), and starring Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox, this horror masterpiece goes down some dark alleys while a father and son try to reconnect after a death in the family.
Set inside a family owned morgue and autopsy center lab, father and son Tony and Austin Tilden (Cox and Hirsch respectively) tend to the recently deceased bodies in their seemingly small town. The local police officer brings a new body of a young woman down to the morgue late in the night that causes Tony and Austin to stay after hours and find out the C.O.D. or cause of death for this dead young woman. They soon find out that there are no marks on her body or evidence that she is actually dead.
After cutting her open and inspecting her insides further, a sinister presence enters the picture into some truly terrifying clues as to just what’s setting off the strange things that happen to Austin and Tony. Underlying the horror of it all is the relationship between father and son, as they both try to cope with moving on from a close one’s death. André Øvredal has perfectly crafted his camera to pick up every nuance of horror around every corner here, whether it be a being lurking around the corner, footsteps behind a door, or some fleshy gore – it all looks phenomenal and scary-as-hell.
Hirsch and Cox turn in excellent performances too that allows you to bond with this father and son instantly with their charm and pranks. There is a genuine love between the two throughout the movie, which makes it more difficult to see them go through what the end up being in the middle of. ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ is one horror film that will last forever and scare the hell out of you.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
-Bryan Kluger