The Ones Who Grieve is an unflinching and harrowing religious horror movie (Fantastic Fest 2026)
Director Quarxx's latest movie, The Ones Who Grieve, is not an easy watch. It's a period horror film where religion is used by a family's patriarch to maintain his power and assault those he views as beneath him, including his wife and daughter, all while proclaiming he's a warrior of god. The movie will be a tough watch for some viewers, but it has great performances and some startling imagery.
The Ones Who Grieve stars Zelie Rixhon as daughter Zelie, Isabelle Anciaux as mother Emilie, and Thierry Fremont as the brute father Jacob. Early in the runtime, Quarxx, who co-wrote the script with Fredric Soulier, establishes the world and some of its rules. Though no time period is given, the clothes make it look like the 18th or 19th Century, but there are fictious elements woven in. Jacob works as a masker. People afflicted with "The Black Veil" have their lips and eyes sewn shut and their teeth yanked. This process is shown early in the film, and it's as grisly as you can imagine. They're then masked and led into the wilderness to essentially starve to death. The Black Veil turns them into scavengers, and they feed on the dead. Jacob has absolutely no remorse for the afflicted, and after he unleashes them in the woods, he returns and eventually shoots them. He does this in the opening minutes of the film, for example.
Besides Jacob's cruel day job, he also oppresses his wife and daughter. He won't let Zelie read anything other than the Bible, for instance, and he scolds her when she visits a nearby farm, where its owner, Jane (Ophelia Kolb), urges Zelie to break free of her father's iron grip. She even sneaks Zelie a book. Meanwhile, Zelie says more than once that she wants to kill her father, and she even hatches a plan to do so with the help of a wayward soldier afflicted with the Black Veil.
For horror fans, there's plenty of frightening images throughout this film that make the slow-burn worth it. However, the most terrifying aspect of this movie is Jacob's tyrannical rule and Fremont's unnerving performance. In short, he makes one hell of a villain, and he grows more deranged as the film creeps on. There's even a scene where he whips his wife and daughter. In addition, Rixhon offers a notable performance too as a woman biding her time until she escapes her father's iron fist. The movie has quite a payoff and Rixhon makes Zelie a character worth rooting for.
There are a few narrative side paths that don't quite work. For instance, a company wants to use electroshock therapy on the scavengers to halt their urge to feed on the dead. One of the company men gives a lecture that pulled me out of the movie. Further, Gabriel (Jean-Baptiste Maunier), the soldier ill with the Black Veil, is an underutilized character. The film really works best when it focuses on the family.
The Ones Who Grieve is an uncompromising film about oppressive male power cloaked in the guise of religion to strip women of agency. Though it's a period film, its themes certainly feel timely and will resonate against current headlines. Besides the human-on-human violence, the film contains its dashes of gore, especially when the scavengers are set loose to feed upon the dead. The Ones Who Grieve is an effective and haunting feature that places religious horror and male violence front and center, while building towards warranted female revenge.
The Ones Who Grieve just screened at Fantastic Fest.
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