The Jane Doe Identity

J'ai attendu tout le temps pour le choc final ultra que m'a déjà offert, par exemple, le film espagnol [REC], mais il ne s'est pas produit. Je l'attendais parce que la tension horrifique ici réussissait à extorquer le plaisir jusqu'à l'os du spectateur. La deuxième moitié de l'actrice A prête à cela son statut, l'odeur des cadavres de la morgue peut être sentie dans chaque plan, et le visage immobile avec le regard passionné de l'actrice Olwen Catherine Kelly vous effraiera encore pendant des heures après avoir fini de regarder. Dommage seulement pour la logique bancale. Avec un scénario plus affiné, ce serait sans aucun doute le film d'horreur de l'année 2016. (10/01/2017)

I hope André Øvredal will start working at a faster pace, because I don’t want to wait another six years for his next genre piece. Both of his films so far, Troll Hunter and now The Autopsy of Jane Doe, are great examples of how to bring something original to the horror genre. They aren’t revolutionary game-changers, rather, they slightly alter and playfully appropriate templates, which is more than enough. On top of that, this film is directed with a firm hand, the camera navigates the interiors of the morgue with grace, and some sequences are text-book examples of how to create tension and horror scenes. The characters are likeable and don’t behave too stupidly, and the core mystery manages to reliably arouse and maintain the curiosity. I won’t pretend the film doesn’t have any weak elements (for me, it was the reveal, when the characters suddenly unravel the mystery and everything is explained to the viewer – IMHO, it would have been better to just tap on the details and let the viewers figure things out for themselves), but overall I’m very satisfied. (21/12/2016)

This is a filmed handbook for aspiring horror filmmakers. Øvredal sticks to tradition like a pathologist to a scalpel. He knows where the line between light and shadow lies, and at the same time he has a clear idea that even if you routinely cut into corpses for a couple of decades, you're still a person with a distinctive character at your core. We get all this for at least the first hour. The final twenty minutes are very clumsy, both in the denouement and in the presentation, where I would have cut down on the literalness of the images and the biblical quotations. It was still fairly decent, though. (15/01/2017)

For a long time when watching a horror movie, it didn’t happen to me that I would be so terrible shocked by its atmosphere, which kept me at the edge of my seat, from the very beginning of the movie. This tension stayed with me for almost an hour. Not only was the atmosphere bombastic, but the disgusting premise of the film was also set in motion – an autopsy which didn’t really add to the impression of a nice and friendly horror movie. But maybe it was the fear of the unknown that made me scared out of my wits. Exactly an hour later, the point of all the events began to be explained and the whole atmosphere went to hell. There was just so much bullshit happening in the movie that I felt like going to the bathroom to think about what the creator meant by it. Quality actors, interesting premise, perfect adaptation, those were all positive. And in the end, the positives won despite the joke that was the last half hour. (28/06/2017)

The first "forensic" half in the style of "conversations at the autopsy table" is very fresh and exciting, the second begins to use on more familiar genre tropes and uses shabby jump scares. Exchanges of views between father and son are sometimes engulfed by rigor mortis, and the final revelation is not exactly from the "what you don't hear about every Halloween" category, but the rather skillful directing and good atmosphere push it through the kiln door with triumph. André Øvredal did not disappoint, just another crunchy story, this time sprinkled with formaldehyde and conducted in a sharp sagittal spirit. By the way, it's a movie that awakens the necrophile in someone. A little bit. (27/12/2016)

Good idea, great execution and moderate runtime that helps the atmosphere, thanks to which the viewer does not get bored. Ugly, a mystery, an autopsy, corpses, darkness, a thunderstorm... ask yourself who could resist such a horror invitation, right? Ummm.... Certainly, some of the jump scares were predictable to cheap, but there were also moments that, I think, no one expected, and the gradual unraveling of the whole mystery was very entertaining to me. Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch are great. (29/12/2018)

I had no idea how much fun you can have watching two dissectors sinking themselves, sometimes up to their elbows, into the slippery entrails of the motionless Jane Doe. Up to a certain point in the story, the filmmakers managed to build up a very strong atmosphere full of suspense and fear of the unknown. Had they managed to keep it up until the end, it would have been a clear five stars. But despite my disappointment in the last third, I did have fun. I was thrilled, and I believe that many viewers will switch on the lights in all the rooms on their way to the toilet at night while anxiously looking over their shoulder. (14/11/2017)

A superb example that horror isn't dead and it's still possible to create original and intriguing films that have that precise unsettling and eerie atmosphere you expect, and it's achieved here solely through one enclosed space and three actors, one of whom lies motionless on the autopsy table throughout. Brian Fox and Emile Hirsch are excellent. (03/07/2017)