A photographer travels with a young girl to a haunted village in Post Mortem. Tomás (Viktor Klem) survived a near-death experience at the end of the First World War, who now works as part of a sideshow, taking post mortem photographs of corpses with their loved ones. The sideshow catches the attention of Anne (Fruzsina Hais), a ten-year-old girl from a nearby village, who Tomás he saw during his near-death experience. He ends up accompanying Anne to her village, where she lives with Auntie (Andrea Ladányi), which Tomás soon learns is home to many malevolent spirits.
Post Mortem is a supernatural horror film by Hungarian filmmaker Péter Bergendy, which focuses on German-born First World War veteran Tomás, who has found a career for himself taking photographs of corpses. It is this trade that leads to Tomás following the young girl Anne to her village, which has amassed a stockpile of corpses during the winter months. Taking a room in the home of widow Marcsa (Judit Schell), Tomás soon comes to find that the village is home to countless shadowy spirits that don’t take too kindly to a stranger in their midst.
While Post Mortem undoubtedly has its spooky moments, the film does leave some things to be desired, with the shadowy appearance of the ghosts not being that scary on their own. The film also somewhat wastes an opportunity, since even without the supernatural element, I’m sure Post Mortem could have found a lot of horror alone in the very macabre habit of taking photographs of corpses, which are often posed alongside their loved ones. However, this is still a supernatural horror film worth checking out.
