I think it's safe to say that for everything there isn't many things creepier than being stuck in a morgue. I have to applaud every mortician for the work they do, because not only is it necessary but it's probably very difficult to find someone to do so. I don't really think every mortician is nuts either, I mean I'm sure there are some. And there are plenty of horror movies including crazy morticians, but it's also a job that someone just has to do.
Okay. So we start in some small ass town in Virginia. There is a brutal death scene with multiple victims. Two of which have obvious causes of death. But the center of our story has to be something much deeper than that. In the basement we find, Jane Doe. Sticking out half buried in the basement dirt pale as can be. Who is she? We don't know. Jane Doe.
Before we get anywhere we have to recognize maybe the most amazing part of the movie. It's in the poster so it isn't a spoiler yet. Owlen Kelly, who plays this dead Jane Doe character, deserves some kind of award. The woman doesn't move the entire fucking film. You can't even see her breathe. She doesn't blink or twitch or anything. She lays perfectly still. And she's beautiful. BRAVO. Owlen, you're the damn woman of horror.
So enter Austin and his father Tommy. Tommy owns and runs the morgue and is training his son Austin probably in hopes he takes over one day eventually. Or maybe just for fun. It's fun right? Slicing open dead bodies and determining causes of death. Hell ya! While taking care of a brutally burned (man? woman?) Tommy is testing his son to see if he can identify the cause of death. To the regular person it seems like he was burned alive. Or maybe he died from the smoke corrupting his lungs in the fire? Nope. Double hemotoma. Dude hit his head before being burned to shit. You failed your quiz, Austin! Sucker. Ha! That's the like only comedic relief in the whole movie. And it's not even funny. It's not. I shouldn't even call it that.
In comes Austin's girlfriend. They're supposed to go on a movie date, but first, she wants to see a dead body. They pull one out of a drawer and don't even show her. They just see the bell on the foot of the body and Tommy spooks her with a prank. You know just in case the person is still alive the bell will ring. Okay that was comedy I guess. No? I don't know. The sheriff arrives and has a new body that has to be examined with answers by the morning. So Austin blows off his girlfriend in order to stay and help his dad with the autopsy. Silly Austin, you should've gone to the movie. Don't you know how these things work? Here's Jane Doe. No bleeding, no bruises, no cuts, nothing. Her wrists and ankles are fractured but no outward signs of injury. She has "peat" under her nails and traces in her hair. What is peat? I had to google. It's some kind of soil/fertilizer used only really in Ireland/Scotland, etc. So for her to be here with peat on her is weird. Her eyes are clouded over as though she's been dead for quite a while, even though the homicide was only reported within the day. Her tongue was severed off. She has a molar missing. Tommy opens her mouth further and pulls out a long piece of thread. They take a swab of her vagina and they find blood. The inside of her has been mutilated as well. Moving forward to the internal exam, Tommy makes his usual incisions over her skin to open her up to see her internal organs. Suddenly their radio turns on and starts playing some weird happy song. She starts bleeding profusely from the incisions, which is obviously unusual especially since she's supposedly been dead for longer than originally suspected. Her lungs are extremely black. Like she was burned alive, but she obviously has no burn injuries. She should be disfigured with all the trauma to her body. Even her internal organs including her heart and lungs have scar tissue on them. "It's like finding a bullet in the brain with no gun shot wound, " Tommy says. They continue the internal exam and find a blood drenched flower, which also originates from Europe. It's called Jimson Need and it's used as a sedative or paralyzing agent. They open up (i don't know what organ this is, I didn't even take biology in high school) her stomach(?) and find a sack of cloth with a tooth inside. Of course it's her missing tooth. And the cloth has some kind of weird witchcraft looking picture/letters on it.
On the cloth they find with her tooth inside her stomach says "IVITICUS XXVII". I mean I saw IVITICUS. I am probably wrong. I can't find a screenshot of it so I'm just going to assume they didn't want to make some direct bible reference. Which obviously already reveals it's witchcraft. In case it wasn't obvious. With a quick google reference, the reference they are going for is "Leviticus 20:27" which says, "A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them" The fucking bible man. It's so brutal. How can anyone who believes in the bible think they are good at all? Okay. She's a witch. These guys have some weird witch knowledge too. So I guess they can't save old Jane Doe until her revenge is brought to life. Which will be of course to them, for whatever reason. To avoid spoiling the ending - because I really do like this movie and I think it's worth a watch. We'll just say Jane Doe has some witchy revenge she has to lay out. There are trapped in the morgue which is the worst fuckin' place to be trapped. Drawers with dead bodies opening up and what not. Being trapped in the basement with no cell service? Brutal. Lots of jump scares. Nothing too spooky visually, but not really too cheesy or lame of a story. I like this movie. Unique story line, acted and shot very well. It's a good one. I give it 9 witchy stomach cloths out of 10. It's all I can ask for in a good spook.
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