Film review: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

This was a film on a list of "Hidden Gem" movies on Netflix and I remember hearing it was effectively creepy when it came out.  Plus it's by the director of the excellent Trollhunter, which I thoroughly recommend.  But this one I do not recommend.  It starts well enough: cops investigating a house full of people who seem to have gone crazy and killed each other, and in the basement, half buried in the dirt floor, a Jane Doe.  She gets taken to the local coroner, a father-son team, the father played by the always-reliable Brian Cox.  The son is just on the way out with his girlfriend, but feels guilty leaving his dad to work alone so late at night, and so goes back into the cavernous old coroner's building, and The Night From Hell begins.  And indeed the first half (at least) manages to be genuinely creepy and to ratchet up the tension, as weird things keep happening as they find out more and more disturbing things about their corpse (tongue cut out, swallowed her own tooth wrapped in some sackcloth covered with strange writing, lungs like those of someone who died in a fire, scars on her internal organs but no blemish on her skin).  Then things really go crazy: suddenly the three corpses that were stored in the morgue disappear, and in the corridor they hear a bell, knowing that one of the corpses had a bell tied to its toe.  But sadly, the movie seriously loses its way, to the extent that we felt bad at having wasted over an hour of our lives watching it.  Go back to Troll movies, Mr. Director!  "Hidden Gem" my arse.