Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes

This dry slice of Norweigan urban horror took me completely by surprise and I rather got on with it. Assuming it at first to be a standard Scandi-noir it takes a fantastic turn and gets seriously dark, ludicrously tense and utterly engaging. It does move rather glacially at times and feels rather open ended but I was a huge fan of the character stuff - the determined police chief, the hapless but glorious Odd and the sinister doctor. Hopefully this gets a little more, but certainly worth a look if you've passed it by or want to have a little bloody taster of Norwegian TV.

A short six episode series about 'vampires' - of a modern sort - set in a small Norwegian town.

Brilliantly acted, especially the characters Judith and Odd. Post Mortem is not a standard zombie style movie. It has a suspenseful plot and a well developed storyline.

Post Mortem is a good bit of television watchable by diverse audiences.

I loved it. Is it super innovative? No. Was it kind of predictabe? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. This show's concept has been done before, but this show tried to perfect it and it delivered something lovely.

The comedy side of it is subtle. It doesn't make you laugh out loud, but the series doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a different kind of humor from the over-the-top kind of humor that American shows can have.

I liked the pacing. Finally a show that's not flashing guns and explosions and twists and drama every 5 minutes. It wasn't slow either, plenty of progress every episode.

And the show even had many likable characters.

Although I'm really thankful that it didn't end on a horrible cliffhanger, I'm really hoping it gets to continue in a second season.

Nowadays if any producer wanna make his vampire series or movies stand out from the crowd, he really needa think out of the box with something we audiences've never thought of. Examples like The String, From Dusk til Dawn series (both the movie and TV) and the recent Blood Red Sky. Without further ado, Post Mortem is certainly a good example of the genre: a funeral agency in debt and a not-so-blood-sucking vampire. To make it straight to you, it don't even think she is a vampire at all. She is more like a poor victim of bloodthirsty tackling her ordeal.

First thing first, any sci-fi element in the series has been carefully removed so that it wont be another sort of sci-fi V-War. The main actress has been carefully chosen so that she doesnt look like another eyecatching Vampiria. In fact she gives me an impression of a neighbouring girl n her acting is simply flawless. Look at her facial expression and body language as an blood-addict!!! The whole story is thus framed into the interaction of the girl and her declining family business of funeral agency. A funeral agency which is about to go bankruptcy, ah, kinda new inspiring idea.

What comes next is the dark humour that we can see in every episode. For humour it means its not for everyone coz we could have very different cultural background. To me Nordic noir is something not seen everyday. So. I buy it for sure!

Scandinavian dark humour could be fun, as long as you could keep up with the pace...... which is the rub. But we ve got choices.

This series would be your cup of tea/coffee if u r a vampire genre fan n u r dying for something different. But here is the catch: every element is minimalistic in the series. If the first 2 episodes can't impress u or make u smile once or twice, then u should better knock it off.

I agree with the praise thus far in most of the other reviews. This fresh and relatively light take on an old genre (like not even using the "V" word) was a treat. For a change, I didn't feel there were too many episodes for the content. The ending works as a one-and-done or as the basis for more seasons - whichever way the financing wind blows. That's viewer consideration of the highest order.

But let's not overlook the role of the score. I'm usually not very conscious of that element, apart from Tarantino flicks, since he invests so heavily in beating us over the head with his playlists. Brilliantly. In this case, the background music finds the sweet spot between eerie and quirky to perfectly complement what we're seeing. Silje Katralen earned the right to take a bow for her excellent contribution as music supervisor.