Police find a bizarre crime scene with several people dead and the body of an unknown woman at the scene. One of the cops thinks that the victims were trying to get out of the house.
Tommy and Austin Tilden (Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch) are father and son morticians. The two work out of the old family house. Austin has a date with his girlfriend Emma (Ophelia Lovibond). The sheriff brings in the body of the woman and asks that they try and identify cause of death before the morning. Austin postpones his date to help his dad.
Father and son start the autopsy and find some strange things. There is no visible signs of trauma but her wrists and ankles have been bound and shattered. Her tongue has been cut out and she’s missing a tooth. While it looks like she just recently died her eyes are cloudy suggesting that she has been dead for weeks.
Strange things start happening. The radio station keeps playing “Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)”. Austin thinks he sees people around the hallways. Further examination finds that the woman’s tooth has been wrapped in cloth inscribed with Latin and symbols and she was forced to swallow it. Her lungs are black like she was burnt but there are no other signs of burns. Something mortally wounds their cat. Then the lights explode. The other corpses in the morgue go missing.
This is a very scary and frightening movie. Director André Øvredal had previously made the excellent Troll Hunter and wanted to show that he could make a scary movie. He succeeded.