In majority of horror movies at least one person dies because of their stupid decisions. Most of the times horror victims fall for monsters because they try to investigate strange sounds instead of just bolt in the opposite direction. However, protagonists in this movie do not make such mistakes. They take most logical decisions as any sane person would do. But that’s not enough to save them from the unique monster and her powers in this movie.
Movie name is The Autopsy of Jane Doe. As the name suggests the story revolves around a corpse of an unidentified young woman. Before I go to the topic, let me lay out background of the story. Jane Doe has recovered from a crime scene. There are three people murdered in a house in a small town. Crime scene suggests that they were trying to break out from the house. What were they trying to flee from? There’s a strange thing in the basement of that house. It is a partially buried corpse of a young woman. There’s a stark contrast between her body and other three bodies. Her body is scratch free and looks so clean. Detectives know the other three dead people. But they cannot identify the mysterious woman or the cause of her death. So Sheriff Burke himself wheels her body in to the Tilden Morgue & Crematorium. Sheriff hands Jane Doe to Tildens and asks them to find her cause of death before the next morning.
Tommy Tilden is the coroner and his son Austin Tilden is a certified medical technician. They are as professional as you could ask for. After they get mysterious woman’s body, they open a file under Jane Doe since they do not know her name and proceed to perform the autopsy. First stage of the autopsy, which is the external examination of the body is completed without any unusual incidents. Don’t get me wrong, they find many strange things about Jane Doe from that external examination alone, but they do not experience any paranormal or supernatural phenomena at this stage. But all things start to go south as soon as the coroner puts his scalpel on Jane Doe in order to begin the next stage of the autopsy, which is the internal examination. Electronics start to act up. Lights flicker, Radio changes channels on its own. For a brief moment you can hear a woman’s scream coming from that radio and then it starts to play a song named “Open up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In.” It feels like Jane Doe is protesting against being cut.
Austin is the first to experience odd things going around them. For a split second he sees a reflection of a strange figure standing in the hallway. Then he seea a morgue drawer opening by itself. Shortly after that the weather person on the radio announces an oncoming storm. Strange thing is that previously weather report has promised a beautiful weather for the next few days. Austin may have felt something, because he suggests that his father postpone the autopsy until the next morning. Father reminds Austin that they need to find the cause of death of Jane Doe before morning as per Sheriff’s request.
After a while radio gives serious weather reports including flash flood warnings. Then something strange happens, weather man says “one thing’s for sure. You are not going anywhere.” And then automatically changes the channel to play the same song, “Open up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In.” Again, Austin voices his concerns and suggests to leave the morgue, but his father is preoccupied with some new finding and isn’t paying attention to Austin. The thing that grabbed Tommy’s attention is that there is something under Jane Doe’s skin, so they peel Jane Doe’s skin to reveal some strange runes underside of her skin.
That’s when all the hell break loose. Tommy and Austin both see morgue drawers opening by themselves. And light bulbs blow out just before a power failure. In the total darkness they can hear bodies falling out from the drawers. Austin uses his phone’s light to look around and they see empty drawers and their content, which are three corpses nowhere to be seen.
Flee, call for help and barricade
Tommy sees what is happening and does not bother to stick around to make sense of the situation. Instead he suggests to get the hell out of there. Tilden morgue is located in the basement of their family home. It has two entrances. One is an elevator and the second one is a cellar door. When they get into the hallway, emergency generator kicks in, so they hurry to the elevator. But emergency power isn’t enough to operate it. By this time the storm is on top of them. They can hear trees falling down outside. Since the elevator is a no go, they go for the cellar door. It is blocked by a fallen tree.
As soon as they figure out that they cannot open the cellar door, Austin checks his phone to call for help. But there is no signal. Tommy right away decides to go to the office to use the landline. When they are walking toward the office they hear a strange thumping noise coming from the direction of the morgue. They do not try to investigate the source. Instead they bolt into the office and lock the door behind them. That’s when the real hauntings begin.
A literal corpse tries to break into the office. Father and son barricade themselves inside the room. But they are not dealing with zombies here. Whatever the power in Jane Doe can easily get into the barricaded room. She proves it by attacking Tommy in the room and toppling down the barricade from inside the room. Tommy and Austin realize that they need to destroy Jane Doe’s corpse for their survival.
Destroy the source of evil power
There is an incinerator in-house, so it should have been an easy task to burn down a corpse and destroy whatever evil powers residing in it. Well that would have been the case if the corpse stays as a corpse. But this corpse isn’t ready to go without a fight. Morgue doors close by themselves to prevent them from taking out Jane Doe’s body. Without missing a beat, Austin takes an axe and starts to axe down the door. But there is a corpse, outside the door, preventing them going out. Austin has enough of it, he takes a can of inflammable liquid to Jane Doe’s body to set it on fire, right there on the autopsy table. His father helps him. But the protective magic on Jane Doe’s corpse is so powerful that it would not allow fire to harm even a single hair on her body.
Fighting with illusions
Then they hear the sound of the elevator coming down. They go for it. But this time they are armed because Austin does not forget to take the axe with him. While they are trying to operate the elevator, a corpse comes again to haunt them. This time Tommy takes the offence and attacks it with the axe. They have no way to know that Jane Doe is playing a trick on them, she hoodwinks them to attack one of their own. Tommy unknowingly attacks Austin’s girlfriend Emma. Poor girl has come down the elevator looking for Austin. I can only imagine what Austin is going through at that moment. But he lets his father to lead him to the elevator without trying to stay with his dead girlfriend or going berserk.
Doubling down on their efforts to find a way to stop Jane Doe
Obviously Jane Doe isn’t going to let them go, and on the same time she isn’t finishing them off either. Austin theorizes that Jane Doe is afraid of them finding what makes her tick. So they decide to carry on with the autopsy in hope of finding a way to stop this madness. Dissecting her brain reveals that Jane Doe is actually still alive. Well at least her brain isn’t dead. Tommy theorizes that Jane Doe can feel everything and she wants people to know her pains, and that’s why she is keeping Tommy and Austin alive. As a good father Tommy asks Jane Doe to spare his son and do whatever she wants to do to him. It is a big sacrifice, because every injury in Jane Does body start to transfer on to Tommy’s body. He cannot bear it. Tommy asks his son to spare him from the pain, Austin complies.
Finally everything go back to normal. Power comes back. As in every movie cavalry arrives at the very end. Austin can hear Sheriff Burke is trying to get in via the cellar door. People are removing fallen trees using chainsaws and vehicles. As a viewer you get the feeling that something isn’t right when Austin fails to open the door. And your heart sink when you hear Sheriff Burke starts to sing “Let the Sunshine in” song. Horror isn’t over yet. A corpse comes for Austin. But this time it is his own father’s corpse. Austin falls down and breaks his neck.
I’m actually sad about the victims of this movie. Father son duo seem pretty decent fellows who loved their job. What was Jane Doe’s beef with Emma? Emma wasn’t even involved in the autopsy. They did not deserve to die like that.
They,
- Tried to escape as soon as they felt something was not right.
- When they were trapped, they called for help.
- Barricaded them from the danger.
- Tried to destroy the cause of all the horrors.
- Tried to escape again.
- Took offence and lost Emma.
- Doubled down and found the secret of Jane Doe.
- Father sacrificed himself for the freedom of his son.
Jane Doe can alter reality
Nothing matters. Jane Doe is never going to let them out alive. When Sheriff Burke really comes in to the morgue to witness the aftermath of Jane Doe’s doing, we can hear the weather report in the radio. It says it’s the fourth day of continuous sunshine. So which means every bad weather report is an illusion and the one where the weather person says “You are not going anywhere” is not a coincident but a promise from Jane Doe.
In the end Sheriff Burke ends up with two identical crime scenes: No forced entries, victims have seemingly killed each other, and no apparent motives for the attacks. Both of them have one common denominator, which is mysterious Jane Doe.
I would like to watch more horror movies like this one where protagonists do everything right but end up dead anyway.
Most important thing I got from this movie is that now I can’t listen to the song “Let the sunshine in” without chills running down my spine.
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