Review of The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) by Teresa L — 08 Jan 2019

Spoilers* It was a good movie generally, but for the real horror fans this falls extremely short. I like a good story to go along with my scares, some psychological trauma and suspenseful revelations are necessary.

Unfortunately, the last act focuses on revelations and exposition, but lacks an actual story. The secret that the father son duo figure out, seems to be wrong at the end of the movie, so I wonder why the director spent 30 mins throughout the film on something that did not matter anyways- they were wrong about her history and the motive.

It wasnï¿ 1/2 1/2(TM)t clever enough to feel powerful that the witch had convinced them of a lie in order to further her agenda. It just felt like an oops moment on the coroners part. The last half especially seems to be attempting to attack deeper themes with a thriller twist- but boohoo, misogyny and parallels to the suicidal mom and the dead (?) witch are not original, shocking, or well thought out developments.

In fact, the misogyny barely even hits, aside from the creepy sexualization of the dead body and the details of the Salem witch hunt provided by the father, which felt awkward. His role at the end, sort of like the avenger for the witch, was extremely forced and did nothing for the betterment of the movie.

It also felt like the director was caught between thriller and paranormal, furthermore caught between types of paranormal to focus on. For example, Jane Doe does not follow any urban legend to a T, even Salem, which was actually kind of refreshing.

The mix of maybe zombies, maybe ghosts, maybe devils/demons, maybe witches does add a bit of suspense story-wise that is supremely lacking. With all this said, it was for sure an entertaining movie, and for someone who does not look quite so deeply into horror like me, it is perfectly acceptable.