Year 1918. Tomás is a young man who occupies himself with post mortem photography. His camera lens brings a little relief to distraught families. A photo taken with a daughter gone too soon may be a dark memento, though, sometimes the only one a family could afford. Working in the company of the deceased could seriously harm many, but Tomás already had a close encounter with the grim reaper. On the front line of the Great War. Lying breathlessly in a mass grave. Instead of a light at the end of a tunnel he saw a face of a mysterious girl. When one day the familiar face shows up in his workshop, he tries to get in touch with her at all costs. The young girl, Anna, asks him to come to her home village, wiped out by the war and the Spanish flu. The man agrees without hesitation. What he doesn’t know yet, is that the place is haunted by ghosts. Furious, vicious and merciless.
“Post Mortem” is an atmospheric horror that takes place in a secluded Hungarian village. A wintry aura, an apparent presence of death, an obscure mystery and very annoyed ghosts make up for a really intriguing combination. Péter Bergendy, who is the mind behind the movie, combines a raw atmosphere of a folk horror with multiple classic solutions. The director scares us from the first minutes and with every scene the atmosphere thickens. Although, the ghosts summoned by him do not have anything in common with the delicate Victorian ladies, who are used to slamming shutters, showing up in mirrors and jumping out of wardrobes. These ghosts are ruthless bastards, who slam the locals, play with corpses and ruin every photo. Can one imagine a more intriguing nod towards ghost stories aficionados?
WORLD PREMIERE: Warsaw IFF 2020 & Sitges IFF 2020
Age restriction: 18+
director: Péter Bergendy writer: Piros Zánkay cast: Viktor Klem, Fruzsina Hais, Judit Schell and others director of photography: András Nagy editor: István Király music: Attila Pacsay language: Hungarian subtitles: Polish
