Review of The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) by Nell A — 03 Feb 2017

This is a legitimately good horror movie - please give it a watch. Please be aware that the bottom of my review will contain spoilers. There are two ways I know for sure that a horror movie is good - (1) if it manages to make me look away without startling me or grossing me out (like the overhead shots), and (2) if it makes you think, in this case more than once, "why has nobody come up with this before, this is brilliant".

A logical, realistic setting with well fleshed out characters - little to no jumpscares (the couple that ARE there are not false, nor obnoxious, nor designed to make you deaf), confronting human anatomy without making it into "gore" (an exaggeration or over-focus) and a story that you honestly cannot predict.

Go watch it, it is honestly worth it - the less you know going in, the better. Please stop reading now if you are not up for spoilers - SPOILERS UPCOMING - SPOILERS UPCOMING - SPOILERS UPCOMING - the only things that annoyed me were spoilers relating to horror tropes/cliches.

The first one being the mandatory pet death, which makes me unnecessarily affected and makes me want to detach from the movie. It didn't add to the story very much either, although it was done with more class than most horror pet deaths.

Second trope being the "you thought you killed a monster but you killed someone you love" - too easy, just too easy. I think they could have made the same point (the corpse makes everyone near it for too long kill each other or themselves) without that kind of shortcut trickery.

Lastly the ending - the "you're getting out... jk you're dead" ending - also a cliche, which isn't always a crime but in this instance felt rushed, unfinished and it made the open ending less impactful because basically everything was "explained" in those last 5 minutes.

It's rough to get invested for 1.5 hours just to be told at the end "never mind", basically.