I watched Posthumous as part of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, where it had its East Coast premiere on October 21, 2026.
Posthumous is Australian writer-director Josh Tanner’s debut feature (co-written with Jade van der Lei). It starts out really strong and offers a lot to like.
The film centers on Zoe (Sophie Lowe), who has just turned thirty and who has returned to her childhood home where her estranged father, Neil (David Roberts) still lives. Zoe’s birthday is anything but happy for both herself and her father, as it’s the day Zoe’s mother died (of cancer) right after giving birth to Zoe. Seemingly at something of a crossroads in her life, a listless and grief-stricken Zoe discovers a VHS cassette on which her mother recorded birthday messages every year until she (Zoe) turned twenty-one. The viewer only gradually realizes that Zoe’s mother is not aging in these messages – and that her pregnancy is slowly growing larger. These messages aren’t recorded over a long period of time; they were recorded over nine months. Zoe aged but her mother remains frozen on tape, getting only sicker, not older.
With her curiosity about her mother (re)-ignited, Zoe explores the house and finds photographs of her mother and father and their next-door neighbors in the attic. When her neighbor, Brenda (Doris Younane), refuses to speak to her, Zoe breaks in to her next-door neighbor’s house and finds some strange occult books and drawings – and more VHS tapes of her mother and father; this time, they are apparently participating in occult rituals.
Zoe watches a tape of her mother involved in an occult ritual
Josh Tanner’s integration of videotapes – and the analog aesthetic generally – in Posthumous is excellent, and a real highlight of the film. In every instance, the tapes are used to cinematically shape the horror, not just to deliver exposition about what happened in the past. And when the lines start blurring between what’s on the tape and what’s real, when something appears to escape and then appears in ‘reality,’ it’s done convincingly and delivers some genuinely terrifying moments. In its use of analog horror, Posthumous reminded me of the excellent TV series Archive 81 (2022), which similarly used videotapes to shape the horror and explore the protagonists’ traumatic pasts.
A character sees a figure in a mirror on his phone – amplifying the haunted media that is are central to Posthumous
The last third or so of Posthumous loses some of the eerie and quiet uncanniness of its analog horror, along with its tight focus. There’s a bit too many (and too repetitive) monster pursuits and a bit too much exposition. The film moves more into the territory of (the endings of) films like Poltergeist and Insidious. Speaking of Insidious, I do here want to shout out the excellent review of Posthumous by film critic Anton Bitel at Projected Figures (indeed, all his reviews). He mentions three Australian films, the intersection of which Posthumous inhabits: The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014), Lake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2008), and Insidious (James Wan 2010). Bitel is definitely right about the influence of these films and the shadow they cast.
If you’re a fan of these films – and of Archive 81 – you’ll definitely enjoy Posthumous. The cast is excellent, and the film offers up a lot of genuinely creepy and unnerving scenes, especially in its use of analog horror.
Posthumous is currently playing at film festivals.
Anton Bitel’s review from Projected Figures:
