Five FrightFest Facts From Peter Bergendy director of Post Mortem

2021 has been a strange year and although things may not have completely returned to normality one thing to be thankful for is the return of the Arrow Video FrightFest which takes place for real this year at Cineworld, Leicester Square in central London.
The annual five-day four-screen 50+ film extravaganza runs between 26th and 30th August and after a year online, it is wonderful to have FrightFest back with a hybrid event featuring in-cinema and online components bringing audiences a whole host of truly terrifying and terrific horror films.

Below we feature one of those monstrously amazing movies with our regular exclusive interview feature Five FrightFest Facts From and these five are from Peter Bergendy director of Post Mortem:

1. Tell us about your film?
When I decided that my next film would be a horror film, I chose a genre that I was also afraid of. And this is the ghost story. With my creative producer, Gábor Hellebrandt, we linked this with post-mortem photography, which became fashionable in the Victorian era, and placed it in one of the most painful historical periods in Hungary, after the First World War. At that time, Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory, which is still really painful for the Hungarians. This has haunted us as a ghost to this day. This is our real horror.

2. How did you get into making horror movies?
In Hungary, before the change of regime, horror was marked as a bourgeois genre. It was banned, persecuted. I was in a lucky situation because I managed to get the biggest horror blockbusters in Super 8 versions. So, I got to know the genre. Later, as a psychologist, I dealt with the psychology of horror film, the personalities of viewers of horror film, and the symbols that appear in horror movies. After two successful period thrillers, I came up with my horror project, which, after initial resentments, was finally supported by the National Film Institute. We made ‘Post Mortem’ for 8 years.

3. What film would you love to see screened at FrightFest and why?
I would screen family novels, development stories, processed life paths, personal dramas, even honest documentaries. Namely, films from the lives of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Pennywise or Pinhead. Because they are our real stars…

4. If you could create your own award to give at the FrightFest, what would it be and why?
The Best Symbols Award. I would give this award to the horror movie in which the psychological contents of the Unconscious are most perfectly expressed through symbols and archetypes.

5. If your life was made into a horror film, what would it be called and who would play the starring role?
Sisyphos – The New Beginning. Of course, starring Brad Pitt.

Post Mortem plays SUNDAY 29TH AUGUST 2021 – 1.50 PM Find our more and book your tickets HERE