Post Mortem (2020) Plot Summary Explained

Tomás gains his ability after being buried alive in an artillery blast during the final months of World War I. While trapped in a mass grave and slipping into unconsciousness, he experiences a vivid vision of a young girl who appears to call him back to life. When an older soldier pulls him from the pile of bodies, Tomás survives but emerges with a strange gift, the ability to perceive and communicate with the dead. This traumatic near-death experience becomes the source of his later work as a post-mortem photographer.

Foreshadowing: The battlefield vision of the girl foreshadows his entire supernatural journey, establishing early that his gift comes from the boundary between life and death.

• tomas
• ghost ability
• world war i
• near death experience
• vision

The girl Tomás sees during his near-death experience is Anna, an orphan girl around ten years old who later appears in physical form. After the traumatic event, Tomás begins seeing this enigmatic girl in his visions, and six months later she surfaces as a real presence around his caravan studio. The vision seems to take on tangible form, suggesting Anna has a supernatural connection to Tomás or perhaps summoned him through the veil between worlds.

Foreshadowing: The vision appears before Tomás ever meets Anna in person, indicating she exists on both sides of the living-dead boundary.

• anna
• vision
• girl
• orphan
• mystical connection

The ground is frozen because the story takes place during the harsh winter of late 1918, coinciding with the Spanish flu pandemic. This creates a devastating situation where the many victims of both the war and the pandemic cannot be buried, as the frozen earth makes burial impossible. The frozen ground becomes a central element of the film's horror, as the unburied dead are said to walk the frozen land, their bodies preserved rather than laid to rest.

Foreshadowing: The frozen ground prevents proper burial from the start, establishing that the dead will remain exposed and restless.

• frozen ground
• winter
• burials
• pandemic
• spanish flu
• unburied dead

Tomás offers grieving families a final memory by creating composite portraits where the living and the dead pose together. He stages these eerie scenes in his caravan studio, carefully rearranging the subjects to create photographs that blur the line between memory and reality. These sessions become increasingly unsettling as the boundary between the living and the dead seems to dissolve during the photography process.

Foreshadowing: His work with composite portraits establishes early that he can manipulate the boundary between life and death through his photography.

• photographer
• post mortem
• composite portraits
• dead
• grief

The villagers believe there are more dead than alive because of the cumulative toll of World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. The village exists in a state of overwhelming loss, with so many deaths that the living feel outnumbered by the dead. This belief creates a paranoid atmosphere where residents sense ghosts everywhere, believing the boundary between life and death has completely broken down.

Foreshadowing: This belief sets up the film's central premise that the dead actively walk among the living.

• villagers
• dead
• ghosts
• pandemic
• war
• population

Tomás uses various primitive tools and techniques to document ghostly presences, including photographic plates, a phonograph, ropes, bells, flour scattered on the ground, and torches. These devices serve as both evidence and protection against the supernatural. The photographic plates appear particularly significant, as they allow Tomás to attempt proving the existence of ghosts to himself and others.

Foreshadowing: The use of photographic plates connects directly to his earlier work creating composite portraits with the dead.

• photography
• ghost capture
• photographic plates
• tools
• evidence

Marcsa is the dedicated local teacher in Anna's Hungarian village who takes Tomás in when he arrives. She helps him settle into the village and supports his work as he begins photographing the dead. Her presence provides human connection amid the mounting paranoia, though the oppressive atmosphere of the village surrounds both of them as they investigate the ghostly phenomena.

Foreshadowing: As a teacher, Marcsa represents knowledge and guidance, helping Tomás navigate the village's secrets.

• marcsa
• teacher
• village
• support
• local

The hauntings intensify as Tomás and Anna push their investigations deeper into the frontier of the beyond. Their deliberate efforts to witness and communicate with ghosts appear to provoke the dead, leading to increasingly dangerous manifestations. The film presents these escalating dangers, barking dogs, muffled moans, malevolent shadows, walls that ooze, and invisible attacks, as consequences of crossing into the realm where the dead reside.

Foreshadowing: The decision to investigate the frontier of the beyond directly triggers the escalation of threats.

• hauntings
• escalation
• danger
• supernatural
• investigation

Tomás travels to Anna's Hungarian village after being invited by some villagers who want his unique ability to help them remember their dead. He leaves his traveling caravan, promising to return in a few days, hoping to use his gift to assist the grieving villagers. The invitation suggests the villagers are desperate for some form of closure with their dead during this traumatic period of war and pandemic.

Foreshadowing: The journey to the village is prompted by Anna's presence, linking his vision to the physical location where his abilities will be tested.

• village
• invitation
• journey
• hungary
• help dead

The film explores how the combined trauma of World War I and the pandemic has completely dissolved the boundary between the living and the dead. With so many unburied bodies on frozen ground and so many grief-stricken survivors, the dead are said to walk freely among the living. Tomás's gift allows him to perceive this broken boundary, and his photography becomes a tool for both documenting and potentially bridging this divide.

Foreshadowing: The entire narrative builds on the premise that the boundary has been destroyed, not merely weakened.

• boundary
• life
• death
• supernatural
• world war i
• pandemic