A Filmmaker's Review: "The Autopsy of Jane Doe" (2017)

There's a lot to be said about this film, but as you can see I gave it a two out of five. The reason mainly being is that the film is clearly a thriller of some kind, but not a horror movie. It doesn't scare - it doesn't creep you out and most of all, it hardly makes the audience uncomfortable. It is simply an autopsy with sinister secrets. Not horror, but a good thriller if you're looking. The mislabeling of the film has cost it a few marks.

Let's take a look at my own personal history with this film. It originally came out in 2017 and was in cinemas, because I remember it being in cinemas. I watched it after its DVD release and then I watched it again some time later on another site. But recently, I wanted to go through and analyse it for what it was really saying to me (and I had never thought of), that it was a horror film and it was made to be frightening and uncomfortable. I wouldn't call it frightening - I would call it claustrophobic and a tad bit chilly. Otherwise, creepy and frightening are not words you'd use to describe it.

The initial scene is slightly confusing because we start with a close-up of a nature shot that is upside-down for no apparent reason because it cuts out to somewhere else. What we have now is a murder scene in which there are people killed for 'trying to get out'. This is an obvious foreshadowing and when the body of Jane Doe hits the morgue - if you were paying attention to that line it will kind of ruin the movie for you.

The stillness of the scenes in order to represent people have died is an old concept and is used very well in the initial scenes of the film. However, the dead bodies aren't too convincing and it can spoil the nature of the scene. The work on those needed to be better than it was. It does look like they are either placed there or moved into position rather than someone just fell there. Some of these introductory scenes are a little long and I would say that to keep audience interest, they either need more questions asked - or they need to be slightly shorter. The build up section is more important and requires to be defined by the extra attention paid to it.

There is a lot of stillness again when we get the first shots of the morgue and this scene of establishment is far too long. What would be better is to show snapshots of each room and then a form of tracking shot from hallway turned into the room in which Jane Doe will have her autopsy performed. The sudden music though is not required and makes the scene look a little laughable. It ruins the great atmosphere that was building up. What was required however, was a small noise or sound to break the silence. It would've served far more effective in order to keep the richness of that still atmosphere.

The shots of the initial autopsy of the burn victim is very entertaining and is hyper-realistic. Something has been done and changed so that realism is now the key point (seeing as there are a far greater number of close-up shots of the body. Audiences cannot catch out the filmmaker!) However, the little love story I feel was a filler and wasn't required. A little bit of a waste of time, the female character doesn't bring anything new to the table in terms of story, theme, ideas, symbols etc. I feel like she could've been cut from the film and would've made no difference whatsoever on the way events played out.

The autopsy of Jane Doe herself is a greatly entertaining chapter. The sheer look of the inside of the human body is an amazing thing. It is far too bad that it looks like a high school biology class presentation. At first, on initial opening - there is much to be seen and done. As the film progresses, it turns into a boring biology lesson cut to pieces by various implications of witchcraft. The twist in the story is something you see coming from a mile away and there were a lot of other things that could've been done but weren't. I wasn't overly impressed with the development of it though I was impressed by the initial presentation.

The ending to the film again, was pretty expected if you watched the first scene close enough. I'm not going to say 'oh it's easy to figure out' because there's nothing to figure out. It's pretty simple to see the reflection from one to the other. However, the lifted yet still strangely dark atmosphere of the ending was pretty much the highlight of the final act. It is very difficult to make something look metaphorically dark in broad daylight.

All in all, it was an impressive concept to read about - just a film that was strangely made. It isn't a horror film by any means and will probably serve better under the crime/thriller category as one of the better of the pack. What I did see though is that the film relied heavily on 'knowing' or 'having' things on hand. It just so happens that the pathologist has a Bible and a book on plants that so happens to have the same plant in the book as found in the body. He knows just where to look in the Bible as well. It really wouldn't work like that in reality and so, marks lost.