The Autopsy Of Jane Doe (2016) Dir: André Øvredal

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When it came to watching this André Øvredal directed horror, I kind of just wanted something easy to watch. I kept low expectations, because most of the reviews for it are average at best. However, I was hopeful that I'd at least find some entertainment in it, even if it ended up being a bad film.

At just under ninety minutes, this wasn't a long film, and, for the most part, it actually wasn't paced too badly. There was a lot of sloppy writing going on, especially in the second half of the film, but I never felt bored, per-se. Moat of the visual effects looked pretty good as well - there was nothing I noted as being especially bad.

The narrative started off as a fairly interesting crime thriller, before descending into what was a generic and extremely predictable supernatural horror story. Seemingly hand in hand with this change, came a distinct and severe nosedive in the writing quality. It was a real let-down. The writing hadn't exactly been stellar, but the down-turn was very noticeable to me.

Brian Cox did not give a particularly vintage performance, by his standards, but he did enough to make sure the film remained at least watchable, even when the writing's quality dipped dramatically. His acting in the first portion of the film was actually fairly good, and played a part in why I thought that was the best period of the film.

Emile Hirsch didn't inspire all that much confidence in me with his acting in this key role. I wouldn't even say that the majority of his acting was bad, as such. It was all very middle-of-the-road - average, but functional. Much like the writing, his acting quality deteriorated as the film progressed, but he never reached the threshold of a truly terrible performance.

Olwen Catherine, who played the dead body, was, for what it's worth, very good at doing quite literally nothing. In that regard, she played an excellent cadaver. I will also give a brief mention to Ophelia Lovibond, although she only really appeared in two scenes - she was fine.

Overall, this one was a bit of an odd film to experience, if only because there was actually more to like than I had expected there to be. I think if the film had been more of a crime thriller, and focused on a realistic, autopsy-based story, it would have been fairly good. The supernatural elements just did not work, and were executed poorly. In that sense, the film was very much a failure.