Rating: 4/5
Everyone has a secret. Some are better at hiding them than others
Grantham, Virginia
Outside, we see a typical suburban home in a neighborhood. Inside the house are multiple murdered and mutilated people. Walls painted with blood and viscera. No signs of a break-in. All signs point to trying to break out.
An officer calls the sheriff downstairs. They find a partially buried dead woman — no one can ID her.
They take all the bodies to Tilden Morgue, where Austin and Tommy Tilden perform autopsies. Tommy quizzes his son on the cause of death. They look in the head cavity and conclude sub-dermal hematoma.
Austin’s girlfriend, Emma, surprises him. She asks to see a body. Austin says no, but Tommy enters and asks her to pick. The bell tied to the corpse’s ankle jingles as it comes out of the tray — an old morgue technique, just in case the body in the tray is still alive.
As they leave, the sheriff brings one more body — the Jane Doe. The sheriff needs a COD tonight. That may prove to be more difficult than they think.
Down here, if you can't see it, can't touch it, it doesn't matter.
I love how little this movie tells you. It’s a mystery that you get to watch the coroners solve in real-time. The autopsy conveys the story.
No surprise, this movie is graphic — they are, after all, performing an autopsy. If I had watched this a couple of years ago, I would have turned it off. That said, this isn’t gory for the sake of it. It all serves the storytelling.
It’s nice to see Brian Cox in something that isn’t Succession. It’s even nicer to see him in a horror movie.
The director had coroners on set for reference to ensure that they performed the autopsy correctly and that Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch acted as, well, coroners.
The script was on the Hollywood blacklist for ages, considered unfilmable but passed around to everyone. Producer Eric Garcia wasn’t a producer, but he liked this idea so much that he reached out to all his connections to make it happen.
Critic Amy Beddows suggests that the movie is feminist. I won’t say how and spoil the film — more making a note for myself.
I love the stop-motion title card!
This movie rules! I’ve never seen a horror movie like this and had a great time. I got spooped a few times too!