Stephen King did well to praise THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE, a low budget but effective slice of modern-day horror, because it does feel very much in the spirit of an early King effort. It features strong direction from the guy behind the exemplary TROLL HUNTER, and two decent performances from Emile Hirsch and in particular Brian Cox, excellent as an aged mortician about to perform his most bizarre autopsy yet.

I do love a single location film that gets everything right and this is such a film. It's fast-paced, quirky, and inventive, and the corpse-focused mayhem that ensues is reminiscent of the highs of Asian horror such as MR. VAMPIRE or THE EYE. I steeled myself for some extreme gore but the film turns out to be not as gory or disturbing as I'd feared, but it is effectively frightening and the storyline feels fresh and original. If only they made more horror films like this these days!

The body of a dead young woman is found buried in the basement of a regular home. It is brought to coroners Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) and his apprentice son Austin (Emile Hirsch). The sheriff is desperate for answers and Tommy decides to work thru the stormy night on the autopsy.

This is a nice little midnight horror indie. It's got the great Brian Cox anchoring and Emile Hirsch shows up for an understudy role. The minutia of the autopsy is great and it turns into a solid haunting story. It's not necessarily ground breaking but it is very well made. There are a few good scares and generally good atmosphere.

"The Autopsy of Jane Doe" is a 2016 horror film that is not long at all, easily clocks in before the 90-minute mark and this is perhaps the most known career effort by the two writers here. It is an English-language film of course directed by Norwegian André Øvredal and it is still his most recent release, even if he has new stuff coming out soon. I personally really loved his Trollhunter film and I must say his take on Jane Doe did not reach the same level of quality, at least not as a whole, even if there were some really special moments in here. Cox and Hirsch will certainly be known and recognized by film buffs and it's fitting that these two as the biggest names in here basically turn this film into a two-man show as they are in it from beginning to end. Maybe you could say three-man show because Olwen Catherine Kelly giving one of the hottest corpse performances of all time is visible all the time too and makes quite an impact while doing nothing actually except lying there.

So yeah the two doctors get the corpse of a young woman and they are told that they have to find out what happened to her, what they determine as the cause of death. But the further they dive in the mystery, the more and more strange things keep happening. And a lot of it is really effective from the horror scare factor perspective. I think the middle part of these 85 minutes is perhaps the best, everything before and after that is okay too, but not great. I just love locked door horror and radio voices horror, gets me every time. Sadly, the final revelation and explanation of who this Jane Doe is and what happened to her did not turn out to my preference really, even if I kinda like realistic unhappy endings like this one here. A bit of a pity. The last shot was not to my liking either as it felt really rushed in. But the good news is that there is really all the opportunity for a sequel with how this one turned out in the end.

The weakest moment of the film was perhaps the girlfriend's death and sadly the character as a whole could have been left out in my opinion. And why would he throw his weapon away? But these are only some cons here. I still think the acting, script, camera work and general premise work out well for the most part. There were a few moments where I was indeed scared and they entertained me nicely from start to finish. The location, i.e. the morgue, was a very good choice and as the gateway between life and death made sure the film delivered from the perspective of atmosphere constantly. All in all, I can see why this one received such a great deal of awards recognition. It shows that traditional horror films that go completely without comedy moments are not dead yet. (No pun intended.) Even I as somebody who has many genres he prefers over horror ended up liking this one quite a lot, so for horror film lovers it is a must-see although I am sure that they have seen the film already anyway as it did not go under the radar at all. In case I am wrong about you, then what are you waiting for? Go check it out now.