52 Pick-Up # 42 – The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Hey there! Welcome back!

Don't mind me, just finishing up with this mess over here.

Okay, I'm not gonna go TOO far with this bit. That's just daring these draws to hit me with something really weird and/or really uncomfortable going forward.

Anyway, once again, welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, the ongoing year-long project to keep me at writing by taking down first impressions of 52 first time watches this year.

October is continuing to roll out and as the horrors persist, they are also proving enjoyably varied. So far that's meant Ken Russell going delightfully off the chain and a darkly comic story about the folly of burying the past. The variety continues this week, this time going into a grisly, occult vein with André Øvredal's The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

So, time for the pitch.

The movie starts us off with local police called to investigate a house. They arrive to find what looks to be a massacre that would be mysterious enough on its own. The mystery is further complicated by the presence of an unidentified corpse half-buried in the house's basement (Olwen Kelly.) On the heels of that discovery, we're introduced to father-son coroner team Tommy and Austin (Brian Cox and Emil Hirsch.) Tommy is shown to be a seasoned hand at his trade, with a keen eye to noticing the little details that can tell a lot about a corpse and how they died. Austin, for his part, is still learning the ropes, but is open to learning. The mystery corpse is brought to them, where the local sheriff is counting on Tommy's insights to help determine who this person was and how they died. What starts as a routine, if unusual autopsy becomes something more sinister as father and son find clues on and in the corpse that suggest this death was anything but routine.

This is one of those titles I have been circling for a few years before this project gave a good incentive to just go 'do it already.' I had a loose idea of the premise as far as the autopsy and there being something supernatural about the body, but was trying not to go any further past that and see where this went. As a result, there were some aspects of this that proved a pleasant surprise to me, even if there were some I was a little disappointed with along with that.

In both cases, this reaction ultimately comes down to the execution of this central premise. I'll give credit where it's due before that and start by saying the general production here is good – especially the two-man performance of Cox and Hirsch, given how much of this movie rests on their shoulders. The two play well together, and as someone who predominantly knows Cox through his more villainous or grouchy characters, it was nice to see him in more of a genuinely fatherly role in this, give or take for some elements of guilt he is wrestling with that come into play as the movie goes on.

Back to my point on how this story is executed, I'll start by saying, the marketing had me expecting this to lean into the occult horror aspects more swiftly and directly. In that regard, I was pleasantly surprised by the slower build up this employs in getting to the more unearthly details of what became of the titular corpse. That slower burn actually wound up becoming the part of this movie that wound up really hooking me. For much of the first half, the movie plays less like an out and out horror (after the prologue, anyway) and more like a sort of puzzle. Tommy and Austin working at the corpse, finding new clues stowed inside of it, some of which address previous questions, but often leave new questions in their wake. Each new step expanding the mystery and keeping this engaging in ways I didn't expect. While I did appreciate the growing supernatural elements as the movie went on – at times seeming to up the ante as each seemed a new force unlocked in the investigation – the actual autopsy was what I kept wanting to see more of.

Which is part of where the disappointment came in, unfortunately. It's the inevitable risk when you get a movie like this where so much is hanging on the mystery – eventually you'll have to make the reveal, and there's a risk the payoff won't measure up to the build-up.

In the case of this movie, I can't say feel like it doesn't measure up. At least, not entirely. On paper, there's a novel idea here, and I do like some of what the movie does with it. But the actual moment of denouement felt a bit unsatisfactory for me after how much I was enjoying the journey getting there. It's not awful, it just feels like they take so much time setting up the clues that the actual explanation feels rushed to get the ending underway.

Which, if I will be fair, I'm otherwise satisfied with. As rushed as the explanation for the corpse and its history feel, the movie does make up for it in where it goes with that knowledge, both in terms of the emotional payoff for our two leads as well as where the movie then takes things for the very end.

Overall, Øvredal has been a director that, to date, I've been in the camp of 'not bad', on. I will admit up front that I still have not seen his breakout in Trollhunter, so maybe that's the one that will do it. As it has been otherwise, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was overall decent and I will grant The Last Voyage of the Demeter had promise, even if I feel like it fumbled the ending in a big way. Of his work that I've seen, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is so far the closest to a solid hit, and it's got enough promise there that I will be seeing where else he goes from here (even factoring in that I'd heard generally mixed reception to Passenger, I'll get there one of these days.)

With that, it's time to close up this morgue drawer and get ready to keep moving. With one week left in October, I've still got one more horror waiting on deck.

And oh MAN, this is one I'm still surprised has eluded me all these years.

But no longer! Next week, I'm finally ticking a long time title off the to do list with Frank Henenlotter's cult classic Basket Case.

I've got a good feeling about this one.

Till then.