Posthumous

Bluesky

There have been any number of tragic illness of the week films in which doomed young adults make recordings for their children to watch as they grow up – but what happens to those children? Zoe (Sophie Lowe) has received a message from her deceased mother Joanne (Kira-Che Heelan) on each of her birthdays up until the 21st. She’s now close to 30, the age at which her mother died, having declined aggressive chemotherapy in order to protect her in the womb, and that has her thinking about her mother a lot. Her dad (David Roberts), however, is taciturn as always. She has gone to stay with him in her childhood home, hoping to get some space to think, trying to overcome the feeling that he resents her because of the circumstances of her birth.

The film picks up momentum when Zoe discovers old photographs which feature her parents alongside two of their neighbours – people her father has likewise never discussed. When she goes to enquire about it, neighbour Brenda (Doris Younane) snatches the photos and shuts the door in her face, so Zoe, determined not to lost the only fresh connection she has to the past, breaks into her house. There she discovers a number of curious things, including a book called Architecture Of The Aether by one Rohan J Sanderson, and a VHS tape with her mother’s name on it.

VHS tape has featured in several recent horror films, including Death Of A Yellow Bird, which played alongside this at Fantastic Fest and also deals with family secrets. Its tangibility gives it a quality that digital recordings can’t equal, and it has not been compromised, as those have, by the advent of AI. It has become clear that many younger viewers now have no idea how it works, but do find it trustworthy. Over time, however, tapes do deteriorate, and there is an attempt to sabotage this one. This means that Zoe can’t be 100% certain about some of the things she sees on it – but what she does see completely changes her understanding of what happened to her mother, and, in due course, makes her realise that she may be in danger too.

Although there are elements of occult horror here, the characters don’t all follow predictable paths, and much of the supernatural element functions as metaphor, a means of addressing Zoe’s underlying anxieties. Can she trust her father? Is she at risk of developing the same disease as her mother? Is she capable of being loved, and deserving of love? She gets texts messages from a young man called Alex (Remy Hii), who believes that they are in a relationship, though she denies it. Is he a stalker or is he simply trying to make sense of confusing experiences with a woman who calls him when she needs support only to push him away again? The film is slow and its horror elements become less effective as more of the mystery is resolved, but the characters and the damage they carry feel real.

There are interesting ideas here, again becoming increasingly common across horror as a whole, about human complexity and the dangers of rushing to judgement, especially when it comes to placing blame. It’s part of a process of moving beyond simple cynicism, which has come to render narratives as predictable as they might be in its absence. There is still a sinister element here, however, and despite its sometimes clunky structure the film delivers some effective chills. From the script to the staging to effects added in post, nothing here feels quite finished. It is palpably a first feature, but, with that in mind, not a bad one, and there’s plenty of evidence of talent. Director Josh Tanner handles his actors well. The rest is likely to come with time, and one hopes that he gets a second shot.

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