Official synopsis from Annick Mahnert’s Fantastic Fest summary
Set in the French countryside at the end of the 19th century, The Ones Who Grieve follows Jacob, a deeply religious man who works as a soul keeper. Believing he is liberating those afflicted by a mysterious illness, he imprisons them behind wooden masks after sewing their eyes and mouths shut. His daughter, Zélie, lives under his tyrannical rule and dreams of freedom. When Jacob sells her beloved horse, Thunder, her resentment reaches its breaking point, prompting her to defy him by hiding an infected soldier in the family barn.
Review
Director Can Evrenol gave cinephiles perhaps the strongest candidate so far for “Feel-Bad Movie of the Year” in 2026 with his pitch-black Spanish horror comedy The Turkish Coffee Table (a reimagining of Caye Casas’s also disturbing The Coffee Table [La mesita del comedor]). But now along comes director Quarxx, who says “Hold my needles, thread, hammers, pliers, wooden masks, and guns” with The Ones Who Grieve (Les âmes en peine; France, 2026), a bleak, harrowing tale of a maniacal father and the daughter who longs to escape his rule.
Quarxx, who cowrote the screenplay with Frederic Soulier, focuses on tyrant Jacob Van Veren (Thierry Fremont), who uses religion as the reason for his cruel actions toward pretty much everyone with whom he comes into contact, and his daughter Zelie (Zelie Rixhon), who dreams of a way out but also realizes how impossible that might be.
The Ones Who Grieve is bound to be one of the most divisive genre films this year. There’s no denying the superb performances of the cast, led by Fremont as one of the vilest cinema villains in recent memory, and Rixhon, as a highly intriguing protagonist who viewers should find themselves easily investing in. The direction and screenplay are strong, the cinematography and period costumes are gorgeous, and the production values are outstanding.
Virtually every female character in the film, however, is put through physical and mental torture including rape attempts. In depicting Jacob’s madman and his actions, Quarxx puts characters and viewers alike through the wringer. The torture inflicted on characters who contract a mysterious disease that eventually turns them into mindless eaters of dead human flesh — still living and not zombies, and never partaking of living humans — pales in comparison to what Jacob’s wife, daughter, and female neighbors are put through. The Ones Who Grieve brings the misogyny on display to a truly graphic forefront. Indeed, some viewers will find it difficult to make it through to the end.
The Ones Who Grieve is the sort of highly disturbing film that is hard to sit through but that possesses enough positive qualities to consider watching. The performances alone make it something to contemplate.
Keep watching after the end credits begin rolling.
The Ones Who Grieve screens as part of Fantastic Fest, which runs September 17-24, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
