Hungarian cinematography has scored an unexpected success: the first ever full-feature Hungarian horror film, “Post Mortem.” has won no less than ten prizes at the 15th Toronto After Dark Festival, which showcases horror, sci-fi, action, and cult cinema.
Iin addition to the bronze medal for Best Film, “Post Mortem” won in the Best Horror Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Hais Fruzsina), Best Special Effects, Best Sound Design, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Most Scary Film and, “the film which we most want to see a sequel to” categories.
After World War I and the devastation of the Spanish flu, in the frosty winter of 1918, Tomás, a young traveling photographer (Viktor Klem), tries to make a living by taking the last photograph of the dead among his family. At the request of a ten-year-old girl (Hais Fruzsina) visits a small village where he has an unusually large amount of work and encounters more and more supernatural phenomena. The ghosts want to tell him something, and he decides to find out what their purpose is, but he walks in dangerous terrain: every wrong move triggers a new, even more aggressive attack.
Directed by Péter Bergendy and produced by Gábor Hellebrandt — the latter also providing the voices of many of the otherwordly sounds featured in the film — the movie has so far been presented at 28 international festivals, garnering a total of 23 prizes.
Rated at 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie is the official Hungarian nominee for the international films category of the 2022 Academy Awards.
