HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2026: THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, ONE AND ALL! Here is my final seasonal post for this year’s festivities. 

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) – This horror film was the 1st English-language movie directed by André Øvredal, who had previously done Future Murder, Troll Hunter and Tunnelen. Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Ophelia Lovibond and Olwen Catherine Kelly starred. The writers were Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing.

The storyline involves witchcraft, reanimation of the dead and graphic autopsy footage. Here’s my courtesy WARNING not to click on Continue Reading if you don’t like heavy blood and gore.

This movie opens at the horrific scene of multiple murders in a Virginia home. One of the corpses is found partially buried in the basement, and though the other victims are identified the naked, partially buried woman is an unidentified Jane Doe (Olwen Catherine Kelly).

While the police continue investigating the slaughter, the bodies are left with the town’s Coroner Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) and his Deputy Coroner – his son Austin (Emile Hirsch). Austin’s girlfriend Emma (Ophelia Lovibond) is also on hand.   

As Tommy and his son proceed with their autopsy of the Jane Doe, her mysteries deepen. Her bizarrely immaculate surface flesh is sliced away, revealing internal organs indicating that the body is really hundreds of years old.

Not only that, but it becomes apparent that the woman suffered inhuman levels of violence, including the tearing out of her tongue and the tattooing of ancient mystical symbols and letters inside her skin. From drugs and parchments found in the Jane Doe’s organs the coroners come to believe that – no matter how impossible it seems – the woman was executed as a witch in the 1690s.

Meanwhile, increasingly creepy things keep happening in the morgue, including odd transmissions on the radio, mechanical malfunctions and a storm which is affecting only this one building.

Against all odds, the father and son realize the Jane Doe is still alive but paralyzed, rendered immobile by the strange drugs and mystical paraphernalia in her body. As they have been removing those things, she has been regaining the use of her supernatural abilities and is the cause of the ongoing paranormal activity plus the violent deaths of Austin’s girlfriend Emma and their pet cat.

Presently, the Jane Doe causes the dead victims brought in with her to rise from their slabs to besiege Tommy and Austin.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Amid much brutality, our main characters come to realize that the other bodies found with the Jane Doe were actually victims of her and were trying to flee the scene of the earlier slaughter. Those victims had succeeded at paralyzing the witch again and almost got her reburied before her powers killed off the last of them.

Tommy and Austin face their doom at the hands of the Jane Doe, with some of Tommy’s internal organs being used to replace her own damaged ones.

When morning arrives, the police find what looks like another scene of mass murder, so the new victims are added to the old and taken away to coroners in another location. The Jane Doe is merely playing possum, pretending to be dead, but in the vehicle transporting her we viewers see her begin to move.

*** The Autopsy of Jane Doe is not a traditional gorefest since the bulk of the “violence” comes from the autopsy footage and not so much what the witch inflicts on her victims. The fact that her body is understandably naked during the proceedings disturbs some viewers.

In my opinion it’s a pretty good horror film and proceeds from a creative premise, but The Autopsy of Jane Doe got just mixed-to-good reviews and was not a big moneymaker. Apparently, no sequels are planned. 

FOR MORE HALLOWEEN SEASON ITEMS CLICK HERE.