MelvinJ0's Horror Movie Reviews

The Autopsy Of Jane Doe (2016)




Andre Ovredal's previous film "Trollhunter" was a surprise hit back in 2010, nobody (myself included) expected a movie about giant trolls to be anything other than a cheap B movie, but it was actually quite good and very entertaining. Now Ovredal is back with another somewhat unique film "The Autopsy Of Jane Doe". The film follows a father and son who work together in a morgue, after the body of an unidentified young woman is dropped off the pair begin an autopsy on her, but from the second they cut into her they start to discover strange things about the body and strange events start to occur.

The premise is definitely interesting, I was hooked right off the bat, I wanted to find out more about the body and the film did a good job of revealing things slowly to increase the tension. I also liked the characters, it's rare that you see a father & son as the leads in a horror film, it worked well and added some emotion to the film. Unfortunately though the film never really does much with it's story or characters. The set up is quite good and the tensity of gets fairly high, but then things kind of just start to fizzle out mid way through, at this point the film is still entertaining but it just starts to feel like another cliche ridden horror flick.

"The Autopsy Of Jane Doe" had a lot going for it, a good quality cast, a fresh concept, and what looked like a decent budget since nothing ever appeared cheap or poorly done in the film. But for me it failed to deliver a big enough pay off in the second act, which really hurt the film overall. Had the potential to be a gem in my opinion, but just missed the mark. Still an entertaining horror film that is worth you time though, should please most horror fans.

Incarnate (2016)




As far as Possession movies go there really isn't a whole lot left to do, and most films on the subject tend to not try anything new at all. That's where "Incarnate" stands out, the film does try to approach possession in a different and more science fiction way which on paper seemed like it could be really interesting, but unfortunately the execution was so basic that the whole thing ended up feeling really flat.

The film opens fairly promising, the opening scene kind of has an eighties horror feel to it and that continues on through the opening credit which I really dug. But from there the movie starts to take on a very strange vibe, the overall tone is serious but some of the characters and lines just felt like they were bordering on parody. Some parts of the movie were just so dumb that it was impossible to take it seriously. The main character (played by Aaron Eckhart) speaks in a very gruff severe tone and honestly I found myself laughing at his delivery on some of the lines. Eckhart is a good actor but his performance here was a little comical.

With all that said though the film does manage to be entertaining for the majority of it's run time. It's a very short film (clocking in just under an hour and twenty minutes) and the pacing is very quick so boredom was never really a big issue. So if you are interested in some cheap thrills and you are not easily put off by very dumb/cheesy movies than you may find yourself enjoying this.

I completely agree, I gave it the same rating. The first half was amazing, in the way it slowly unfolds and we're getting clues of Jane Doe's life solely through the autopsy. I would've loved it if that was the entire film. Where we only get tidbits from the autopsy and everything was left to our imagination. Because I have to say, those were the best scenes of the film. I was intrigued and the buildup of tension was really refreshing. Then, as you said, it just turned into another basic horror film. I wasn't fond of the shoddy CGI, either.