I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I am a horror movie hipster. The fact that I characterize my self as a hipster of any kind right now is making me sick to my stomach, but I have to own up to it. As I have mentioned a year ago in my review of The Witch,  I am not the easiest person to please with horror. I want to be scared, yet I am too familiar with the common (and very overused) tropes of the horror genre to have much that will shock me.  Films that go outside of their genre stereotypes, such as The Witch, tend to impress me far more than crowd favorites such as Paranormal Activity in which I was just rooting for the demon to kill everyone and be done with it. Yet hardcore horror fans demand these tropes and are enraged when they don’t have them. I can’t tell you how many horror fans disliked The Witch after I so enthusiastically recommended it to them.

Have I finally found the ultimate compromise in ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘? The holy grail of a well made, art house type horror film that has enough genre familiarities to please the most traditionalist horror fanboys is a rare bird indeed. Directed by up-and-coming indie darling André Øvredal of Trollhunter fame, this IFC produced film is about the Tildens, a father and son team of coroners who receive a body of a mysterious unidentified woman. Tasked with determining the cause of her death by morning, things get continuously more disturbing and inexplicable as they investigate her body.

One of the most stand out things about this film is the very small but effective cast. Brian Cox plays the father, Tommy Tilden, while Emile Hirsch plays Austin, the son. The story and action of the movie mainly focuses on the duo and their relationship, something I find to be extremely refreshing. I feel many horror films suffer from lack of focused characterization, i.e., I am never able to care enough about the characters before they must struggle through the challenges of the plot.  I immediately cared about Tommy and Austin Tilden because not only did I get to know them better, but their dialogue and chemistry meshed incredibly well. In my humble opinion, Emile Hirsch is far underutilized in the film industry and Brian Cox should win the Best Actor Oscar for everything.

The movie as a whole is a blend of new and familiar. Many common horror elements, such as the spooky old morgue setting, violently stormy night, and fake-out jump scares at the beginning are utilized. At the same time, the film framed these tropes differently, making them feel less stale than they could have been. Øvredal proves himself to be both a masterful and entertaining director as every aspect of this film was pitch perfect on a technical level. The creep factor was sufficiently subtle while still delivering brief moments blatant gore. While I enjoyed the story as whole, my only complaint perhaps was that the ending was hard to swallow. Not that it was a badly done ending, by any means! The buildup simply left very little wiggle room to do anything else without completely changing genres. I wish I could say more without spoiling the entire thing.

So, finally, The Autopsy of Jane Doe gives my “Horror Hipster” self something ultimately satisfying that I am not afraid to share with my more mainstream friends. I truly hope the trend of artfully made, well characterized horror films keeps going in the near future