October | 2021 | Lorelei By Starlight

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a movie that I find to be extremely effective in its simplicity. Set almost entirely within the basement of a funeral parlor, the basic plot is that of father and son, Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin (Emile Hirsch), who are brought in a last-minute body for which an autopsy and cause of death is needed by the next morning. Austin postpones his date with his girlfriend, Emma (Ophelia Lovibond), in order to stay and help his father complete the work. However, the Jane Doe that has been brought in has some secrets that will prove disturbing, and as the duo continue to work and attempt to puzzle out their strange findings, things become more and more terrifying. (NOTE: Spoilers from here on.)

This movie is definitely not for the faint of heart, but the autopsy aspect doesn’t really seem to be any more gory than what I’ve seen on numerous police procedurals. The setting itself is an aspect of horror, since the embalming and autopsy rooms of a funeral parlor are areas that instinctively cause us to cringe. Once Tommy and Austin begin the autopsy, though, it becomes clear that things are very odd. The girl has severe injuries internally – to bones and organs – that are not reflected on her unblemished skin. As they go deeper, they find evidence that she has swallowed some things that could have caused death, but there is no evidence of it within her organs. By the time they get to the point of locating strange symbols somehow tattooed or burned into the inside of her skin, it has become clear that there is something going on here that is definitely supernatural.Throughout the process, the radio that the duo listens to switches from what sounds like a normal broadcast to an eerie rendition of an old gospel song. Additionally, a huge storm begins to brew and blow outside the funeral home. The lights flicker, go out, and the other corpses in the freezers decide to get up a take a stroll. Here, the outdated use of toe bells on the corpses, which is used humorously by Tommy to give Emma a scare at the beginning, comes back later as an ominous and terrifying signal that the dead are no longer lying peacefully. By the time the storm outside has managed to trap father and son within the funeral home, it’s clear that this Jane Doe has powers within her that are impossible to defend against, and Tommy and Austin are both fated to succumb to her furious revenge as is an unfortunate Emma, returning for her late date with Austin.

I really love that this movie gives us only the point of view of two men who have no information to go on about the deceased other than what they find within her body. Each time I watch the movie I’m especially impressed by how frightening Jane Doe is without ever actually moving on her own. We get a series of hints at what she is as the autopsy is performed: a waist that has been made smaller than usual by the regular use of a corset; the finding of peat beneath her fingernails (a medium that is known to greatly preserve bodies that have been buried in it); a cloth bag with an inscription and holding a part of her body (her tooth); lungs that appear to have been burned. All of these clues point toward the type of damage that someone would have received if they had been tortured as a witch in the 1700’s. The addition, however, of the symbolic spell work on the inside of her skin is extremely interesting, and the conclusion of Tommy that Jane Doe had potentially been made into a witch by the very tortures meant to incriminate her is an intriguing twist on the tropes.

However, it’s the ending of this movie that really has the payoff for me. The police come in to a scene where all parties are dead, and it is just not clear what has happened. In fact, Austin could easily be seen as being responsible for all of the deaths, including his own, a fact made more horrifying since throughout the situation Austin had been the one who had wanted to stop the procedure, seeing early on that there was something not quite right. Now we see that Jane Doe’s body is pristine again, as if they had never begun working on her. And, we hear the radio announcer state that today will be the fourth day of full sunshine in a row, meaning that the storm that the father and son fought through the night before was one that only affected them and their interpretation of reality. We get the feeling that Jane Doe is nowhere near finished with her revenge and that the next funeral home that takes her in will likely also be afflicted with tragedy.

This movie has gotten a reputation for being a quiet and hard hitter for good reason. The pacing never lags and the story is extremely well-crafted with small nuances that allow for further exploration upon repeated viewing. If you’re looking for a witch movie with a twist this Halloween season, you can’t go wrong here!

I have had Tim Lebbon’s Eden on my “to be read” list for awhile and recently had a chance to check it out. The book is set in a future where the international community has decided to form several zones across the globe where humans will no longer be allowed, essentially giving back those areas to nature in an effort to save the planet. At the point where the book starts, this situation has been in place for around 50 years or so, and the thirteen zones have become destination points for adventure racers. We are introduced to a team of racers who are about to embark on a race through the oldest of the zones, Eden. Very little is known about the zones or who has actually made it through them, since it’s illegal for humans to enter them, but there are rumors of how tough Eden is to master.

The prominent characters are Jenn and her father Dylan, who leads the group. Jenn had been the one pushing for this particular zone, and it isn’t until the group is well into their trip that they find out it’s because the zone was the last-known whereabouts of Jenn’s mother, Kat – Dylan’s estranged wife. Accessing the area is much like being smuggled into a different country, and there is a danger of being caught and killed – the rules about no humans are serious. Tensions run high as the group deals with not only unfamiliar and rough terrain, but mistrust and old wounds between the members, and the possibility that there is something more malevolent waiting for them beneath the verdant branches of Eden. (Note: Spoilers start here.)

I enjoyed the way that this book was set up. It’s almost a slasher format with the actual natural world around the adventurers working as the killer. The further that the team progresses into the zone, the more worrisome things become. They find an abandoned camp that doesn’t look like it has been there for very long, and eventually are able to ascertain that it did belong to Kat’s group. (Other more macabre finds follow, which help to verify that this is so.) The extreme amount of physical endurance needed to survive lends to the stress of their situation, and the complete absence of other humans for miles and miles around them creates an isolated, eerie, and alien feeling. All of the humans living in the area were moved out and their houses, vehicles, and belongs left behind, creating an unsettling skeletal frame for the natural growth of trees, vines, and flowers.

The story of the racers is alternated with that of Kat, who is in fact still in Eden, but who has come across a living organism unlike any that have been found before. As the organism infects and takes her over, she becomes something both more and less, her humanity fading away as the invader takes over use of her body and she becomes simply a passenger. From her status, she is able to join the invader as it speaks to the minds of other animals and plants in the zone, and the subsequent behaviors enacted truly reflect an amoral natural state – one that humans may not have been prepared for when considering giving the earth back over to its natural designs.

As the team works its way deeper into the zone, they are attacked by predators in an abnormal fashion. A wolf, coyote, and big cat form a pack and track them, taking them out one by one, all as Kat is forced to watch from a distance through the creature’s eyes. What started as an adventure that the racers all knew would be a test of their physical and mental endurance, becomes a desperate struggle for survival, as the team’s goal changes to simply getting back out of the zone that they worked so hard to access. As Kat in her new form stalks and eventually catches up with the group, Jenn and Dylan find that the reunion with her is not at all what they had hoped for.

This book was a chiller! I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of humans taking care of nature (by creating these zones) with nature not giving two hoots about humans once it had the opportunity to take over. The name, Eden, itself presents a mental idea to us of somewhere pleasant to be, but I think that we often forget that nature left to its own devices is not necessarily so pleasant. Blood, fangs, claws, choking vines, and poisonous plants are all part of nature, too, and Lebbon uses them to great advantage in this eco-thriller.

If you recognize the author’s name, it may be because he was also behind the fairly recent Netflix movie The Silence, which also has a plot featuring nature vs. humans. If you are looking for eco-horror, I encourage you to check both of these out!