The Ones Who Grieve Looks Like a Very Strange Folk Horror Nightmare

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The Ones Who Grieve film still


The first teaser for the new French horror movie The Ones Who Grieve has recently arrived, giving us our first proper look at director Quarxx's latest film after All the Gods in the Sky and Pandemonium, nd judging from the footage, this isn't exactly going to be a cheerful little period drama.

Set at the end of the 19th century, this folk horror follows Zélie, played by Zélie Rixhon, who lives on an isolated farm under the suffocating control of her deeply religious father, Jacob, played by Thierry Frémont.

And then the black viel arrives.

The Plague Is Only Part of the Problem

The Black Veil is described as a mysterious disease spreading through the surrounding countryside, but the movie isn't treating it like a straightforward historical plague story, and as the illness spreads, faith starts becoming increasingly difficult to separate from madness, while Zélie is already trapped inside a household controlled by a man who believes his religious authority gives him the right to control everyone around him.

Quarxx has described the film as being fundamentally about control, particularly the way control can begin inside a family and gradually spread into the wider social environment, where the film aims to deal with forbidden desire, enforced silence and domination carried out in the name of paternal and religious authority.

The movie also takes place in an alternate version of 19th-century rural France, and that world is starting to change technologically - Tesla towers are appearing across the countryside as electricity begins making its way into this otherwise isolated setting - so we're dealing with a period horror movie that isn't entirely historical, with Gothic horror, folklore, religious fanaticism, disease and early electrical technology all existing in the same strange world.

Grimmfest has gone as far as describing the film as a kind of French Gothic Western with zombies, while other festival material has pointed toward a mixture of scientific fantasy, folklore and Grand Guignol melodrama, and I'm not entirely sure what a French Gothic Western with zombies actually looks like yet, but I'm certainly curious.

Quarxx Is Back With Something Very Different

If you've seen Pandemonium, you'll already have some idea that Quarxx isn't exactly the filmmaker I'd expect to make a conventional period horror movie, where his feature debut, All the Gods in the Sky, was another very strange piece of French genre cinema, followed by Pandemonium, which took audiences on a much more surreal journey into horror and the afterlife.

The cast in this one is led by Thierry Frémont, Zélie Rixhon, Isabelle Anciaux and Jean-Baptiste Maunier, with the film produced by Transgressive Production and Kali Pictures, and the French title is Les Âmes en peine,

It has also already been making its way around the European festival circuit, including the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival and Fantasy Filmfest, before heading to the US, where it will have its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 18th, 2026.