A 2016 horror mystery that will surely leave you feeling terrified called The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a film that follows the strange events that start to take place after a bunch of coroners perform an autopsy on a murdered girl to get to the bottom of the cause behind her death.
The movie was directed by Andre Ovredal, known best for movies like Trollhunter and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It has actor Emile Hirsch in the role of Austin Tilden, Brian Cox in the role of Tommy Tilden, Ophelia Lovibond in the role of Emma Roberts, Michael McElhatton in the role of Sheriff Sheldon Burke, and Jane Perry in the role of Wade along with a few others as the small yet talented cast of the film.
At the time of its release, the movie first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and a few weeks later, it had a theatrical release. The story is a creepy thriller where the two coroners, Austin and Tommy Tilden, a father, and son duo, while conducting an autopsy on a mysterious woman, face some unexplainable paranormal activities.
Director Andre has prior experience in the genre and has proven his abilities with this one as well. While the title of the film does sound gruesome, the way the movie unfolds is likely to throw you off completely. It is thoroughly disturbing and carries an eerie vibe throughout the length of the film, keeping the audience at the edge of their seats at all times.
The actors have done justice to their characters, though to many, the movie seemed a compilation of jumpscares instead of a film with a thought-out plot and gravity. One thing that many who have watched The Autopsy of Jane Doe agree on is the fact that the plot of the movie seems to lose its direction by the time the climax comes around, making the end feel a bit rushed and loosely done.
Overall, the movie is an entertaining thriller that will have you hooked right from the start, and if you want to know more about the plot of the film and have its ending explained, then make sure you read till the end.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe Ending Explained
The movie opens in a regular house, a home to somebody once but a crime scene now. We see the police investigating the murders of multiple inside the house, but soon, the investigating officers find something strange in the basement of the house.
A dead body of a naked woman, buried into the ground halfway and covered in mud. The police discovered that this woman had no relation to the family dead above. What was even strange about these murders was the fact that though everybody inside was dead, including the strange woman, there was no sign of anyone having forced their way into the house.
The police concluded their investigation at the house, convinced that the victims were trying to run out of the house. We then moved to a morgue, where the coroners, Tommy and Austin, were already conducting an autopsy on a body in the morgue, which is built in their home.
While the two work on the body, we realize that Tommy is the efficient and more skilled one, while Austin is more of an underling, still learning the work. While cutting the body opening and taking a look at it, the two talked like it was just another day, and Austin mentioned his girlfriend, Emma, with whom he had plans later that night.
When Emma visits Austin, the two visit the dead bodies and look around for a while, talking about the bells tied around them. Finally, Sheriff Burke reaches their place with Jane Doe’s body, and Austin has half a mind to leave his father to do the task alone.
We find out that during one of his scenes with Emma Austin, he is not passionate about his work as a coroner and is planning to talk to his father about leaving the profession altogether. With Jane Doe’s body here, Austin asks Emma to come for him again in two hours so that the two can enjoy their midnight date.
The Autopsy
The sheriff tells the duo that the woman had no fingerprints or other information that could reveal her identity and that the higher-ups wanted the autopsy results by the next morning to find out who this dead woman was. Realizing that they would have to stay up the entire night, the two get to work.
Over the different stages of her autopsy, the two discover more and more strange things about the body. Her cloudy eyes seemed to suggest that she had been dead for quite some time, her small waist was concerningly small for her body shape, and her wrists and ankles were completely shattered, but there was no sign of any external trauma.
After taking a deeper look at her body, they realized that her tongue had been brutally cut off, one of her teeth was missing, her lungs were black thoroughly, which looked like she had suffered through third-degree burns, and finally, her organs seemed to have a bunch of cuts and scars all over.
They also manage to find a unique paralyzing agent in her stomach and discuss just how badly the woman must have been tortured before she finally gave up on life. Another thing that gets added to the list of things weird about the body is that its state looked like she had just died, but the eyes seemed to tell a different story.
The Hunt Begins
Soon the strange events start taking place within the walls of their home, like the lights flickering over them, the loud radio static noise, Austin hearing some noise out in the corridor but spotting no one, him spotting a figure in the mirror, but it turning out to be nothing, and finally Austin running after something which turned out to be just an injured cat.
The missing tooth of this woman was found in her stomach, placed there in a cloth with Roman numbers, letters that did not seem to make any sense, and a symbol that had never been seen before. Soon, the light of the morgue goes out, and the two find all of the other corpses to be missing as well.
Realizing that something might be gravely wrong, they decide to escape but find themselves completely trapped inside the building. Back in the autopsy room, the door locks itself, and Austin ends up using an axe to force it open. He spots one of the missing corpses and sets it on fire, only to find its body completely unaffected.
The two run for the elevator but find themselves being chased by what they thought to be a corpse, and Austin uses his axe on it once again. Unfortunately, they realize that what they thought was a corpse was a human, Emma Roberts, his girlfriend.
Jane Doe’s Truth
Finally, realizing that Jane Doe did not want them to find out about the cause of her death, which might be why she was torturing them, the two conducted more tests on her, only to find the tissue cells in her brain alive and active. They also find that the markings on the cloth that was inside her said Leviticus 20:27, which condemns the witches, and the number was the year 1963 when the Salem witch trials took place.
They figure that this innocent woman, despite being a mortal, was treated as a witch and had been falsely punished, and her body, which looked dead, had endured and felt the pain of the torture fully. She was taking revenge, and Tommy was prepared to offer himself as a sacrifice to save his son from the pain.
He does the same things to his body that were done to hers, crushing his wrists and ankles, copying the scars, but before he can cut off his tongue, Austin kills his father, not being able to witness his misery. With his father gone, his girlfriend dead, and an angry, possessed dead body in his possession, Austin was in complete shock.
Despite this, he follows a voice he thinks he has heard and assumes to be the sheriff, but it turns out to be nothing but another hallucination. While outside, Austin, who still thinks that there was a bad storm outside, seems to spot his father’s body right in front of him, which shocks him enough to trip over and fall to his death.
The Ending Explained
As the morning came, we assumed Burke would finally have some clues to find out what was happening around the body, but all he saw at the morgue were three dead bodies: Emma, Tommy, and Austin. Jane Doe’s body is intact, exactly the way she had been brought there.
From what the movie has revealed till now, we know that Jane was a victim and a human sacrifice from the times when witch-hunting was a thing. She had been brutally killed and now sought revenge on anybody who came in her way.
Tommy had also figured that every time she managed to kill someone, she healed a little bit, which is why Emma’s death and Tommy’s sacrifice had given her energy and ‘brought her life.’ She was on a revenge spree to heal herself and find her life back.
As Burke ordered her body to be taken to another morgue while he dealt with the new dead bodies, we see a scene while she was being taken away that her toe moved ever so slightly, which meant Tommy had rightfully figured out her plan, which seemed to unfold perfectly, also leaving the viewers wondering how many people will be sacrificed next.
