Andre Ovredal’s first English language film is a very well-crafted and viscerally terrifying film starring Biran Cox, Emile Hirsch and Olwen Catherine Kelly. Cox and Hirsch play father and son, Tommy and Austin Tilden who run a morgue and crematorium. Austin has dreams of getting out of the business and town, and taking his girlfriend, Emma (Ophelia Lovibond) with him.

They are about to call it a night when the local sheriff brings in a body from a crime scene that he wants to be looked into right away. They roll the Jane Doe (Kelly) into the morgue and are stunned when the more they dig into things, the more of a mystery they uncover.

She’s had her tongue removed, and despite no external displays of injury, there were terrible things done to her. Every time Tommy or Austin begins to work on the body something sinister seems to happen, and they seem to be getting worse.

There’s a storm raging outside that traps them in the basement morgue, there’s strange broadcasts on the radio and is there something walking the halls? or is it all just imagination?

It’s crafty and spooky, has some great physical effects as the autopsy progresses and Ovredal ratchets the tension as each layer of mystery is pulled back like the flesh on Doe’s body, and Austin and Tommy won’t be ready for what they discover or where it leads.

Ovredal makes use of his set, the actors, and the genre to make this film work, and it’s unnerving. The physical effects are exemplary, and while one could argue that the film runs a little short, just shy of an hour and a half, there isn’t a wasted moment on the film.

The horrifying things done to Jane Doe, and the terror that springs up around her, are captured so well and both Cox and Hirsch bring the profession they’re portraying and their descent into terror incredibly well. And it’s all done as they dig deeper and deeper into Doe’s body, which somehow, may not be dead.

This one works really well. I quite enjoyed it. As mentioned, I found it a little short, and I wish there had been a little more length to the narrative, flesh out the tale and the horror just a little more, but when this thing worked, it worked like gangbusters.

Cox is fantastic, and I loved the look it gave us at the profession as well as the inherent creepiness of it for those who don’t do it. Wonderfully creepy, and well-made. And honestly, I loved the mystery of it, though I was ahead of the Tildens in figuring it all out.