10 Films Where Dead Bodies Were Main Characters
3. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
While Norwegian director Andre Ovredal would later go on to direct his immensely terrifying iteration of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, his first English-language film is an engrossing piece of work in its own right.
Following a father and son team of coroners performing an autopsy on the body of an unknown woman found at the site of a crime scene massacre, it quickly evolves into a dark exploration of human brutality.
The morgue’s other residents rise from their tables and begin wandering after our spooked duo. Hallucinations constantly plague them, bringing intense tragedy in their wake. And the bizarre discoveries during the autopsy itself all move toward a greater mythology involving a centuries-old Salem witch and the curse she carries with her.
While the titular Jane Doe is the most obviously corpse-like of all of the ones on this list, her impact on the entire plot of the film cannot be overestimated. In the end, the audience is even left with the question of whether the greatest danger is the ritual being performed, or Jane Doe herself. Is it the curse or the corpse?