One of the most inventive foreign exports of the decade so far is André Øvredal‘s Trollhunter, a thrilling, funny mockumentary which puts us on the ground as we witness a creature hunt in the Norwegian outdoors. He’s now back for another thriller of a very different variety with The Autopsy of Jane Doe.
Rather than exploring the great outdoors, the film finds us in a morgue with Emile Hirsche, Brian Cox, and Ophelia Lovibond as secret involving a newly arrived corpse begin to pile up. IFC Midnight has dropped the first trailer, which is a nearly dialogue-free tease as the mystery amps up. Following a premiere at TIFF and ahead of a December opening, check out the trailer below as well as the Fantastic Fest synopsis and poster.
Austin Tilden is ready to get out of Grantham, Virginia. With his mom dead and his girlfriend pulling at him, the only thing keeping him is his relationship with his father Tommy, the local coroner. The Tilden morgue has been a staple in Grantham for years and Austin still has plenty to learn from his dad, who may be older but is still as sharp as they come. When the local sheriff brings in a corpse late one night, Austin blows off plans with his girlfriend to stay and help his father with the autopsy.
The body belongs to a young woman found half-buried at a crime scene. With no ID and her fingerprints not found in the police system, she’s classified as a Jane Doe. What’s more troubling is that there’s no apparent reason for her to have been at the crime scene. And the body is pristine, with no apparent cause of death. As the Tildens start the autopsy, they discover that her eyes have clouded, which would indicate a body that’s been dead for days, but the muscles show no rigidity or signs of rigor mortis. And that’s just the first anomaly they find. As the strange inconsistencies pile up and a thunderstorm rolls in, the Tildens will find that the body on their table holds plenty of dark and terrifying secrets.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe opens in theaters and on VOD on December 20th.