‘Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes’: Norweigen Netflix Series Is about Blood and the Family Business
Netflix has premiered many foreign series over the years. Adding to the roster in the Norweigen genre is Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes. The series joins others such as Ragnarok, Bloodride, Norsemen, and more. Post Mortem is a thriller series that takes a new spin on bloodsucking humans in a quiet and small town. In the town of Skarnes, it’s no often that people die. The town descends into unchartered territories when the daughter of the local funeral home owner is found in a field. The dead body is not dead at all and comes back to life as something more than human.
Harald Zwart and Petter Holmsen created ‘Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes’
The Nordic noir murder mystery has an interesting creator behind it. Harald Zwart is better known for directing Jaden Smith’s reboot movie The Karate Kid alongside Jackie Chan. Zwart is joined by Motion Blur, responsible for producing another Netflix Nordic series, Cadaver. According to Deadline, Zwart was excited for the project and the actors cast in the series, “who all embody the blend of Scandinavian mystique and dark humor.”
Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes has a riveting and unique thriller story that got producer Tesha Crawford, Director of Nordic Original Series, invested. She gives praise to Petter Holmsen, saying, “Petter created such an intriguing mix of thriller, drama, and supernatural elements with this project, and we have a lot of trust in Harald and the wider creative team to bring this to the screen.” The series tells a haunting and chilling story of blood and the family business in a seemingly mundane town.
A young women wakes up from death craving blood
Live Hallangen (Kathrine Thorborg Johansen) is found dead by local police in an open field. The police have no choice but to declare her death natural causes but order an autopsy to be sure. A dead body in Skarnes is unusual. Unsure of what to do, the police call the local funeral home run by Live’s older brother, Odd (Elias Holmsen Sørensen), and their father.
In autopsy, Live suddenly comes back to life with no signs of ever being dead. Coming back from the dead causes Live to change. She has heightened senses, super strength, and an urge to drink human blood. Live’s urges become uncontrollable and Skarnes gets a rude awakening of deaths like never before. At the same time, Odd deals with the failing family business and will take whatever measures to keep it afloat. Forbes describes the series as, “Don’t be fooled by its seemingly light-hearted dark humor—as if to point out the absurdity of the whole situation—this is a brutal series about vampires.”
‘Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes’ adds hype to chilling vampire genre
The Netflix series is unique in its own ways as it ties dark humor with an even darker portrayal of the supernatural. Vampires have been a hot commodity on television ever since The Vampire Diaries mainstreamed the genre in 2016. Over the years, vampires have slightly deviated from the horror teen romance into a dark and disturbing area of television. True Blood raised the stakes with being a more adult-themed series full of blood and gore.
Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes joins the family of more haunting stories like Netlfix’s Dracula and V Wars. The series deglamorizes the idea of vampires to be more rooted in a monstrous portrayal, much like Netflix’s Blood Red Sky or SyFy’s Van Helsing.
