The Ones Who Grieve (Fantastic Fest 2026)

Director Quarxx had his English-language breakthrough with 2024’s vision of hellish ordeals, Pandemonium, offering himself up as a director specialising in “day-ruiners.” Making its World Premiere at 2026’s Fantastic Fest is the French director’s latest, The Ones Who Grieve. On an isolated farm in the French countryside, Zélie (Zelie Rixhon) is trapped under the authority of her terrifyingly religious father, Jacob (Thierry Frémont), and long-suffering mother, Emelie (Isabelle Anciaux). Her father makes a barbaric living as a “Masker,” dealing with people afflicted with a mysterious disease known as the “Black Veil.” While the disease ravages the countryside, the film depicts faith descending into madness and despotism. Yet, in spite of the odds against her, Zélie strives to preserve her humanity and claim her freedom.

We are introduced to the Black Veil in the most brutal way. This unforgiving ailment affects men, women, and children alike, causing the victim’s eyes to go black and succumb to craziness within days. In the middle of the night, a young mother and her eight-year-old son arrive with early signs of the disease, and being a Masker, it is up to Jacob to deal with any outbreak no matter who the victim may be. The mother cries for mercy while villagers and soldiers nearby claim Jacob is going to hell. Later, another character describes him as worse than smallpox. He has the young boy locked to the table, asking Zélie to fetch the tools of his trade. With Zélie as our eyes and ears, she leaves, and we see the aftermath: the boy’s eyes and mouth have been sewn shut. The next step requires a monolithic iron mask placed over the victim’s head before they are dumped in the countryside and left to starve to death.

Zélie later discovers a soldier afflicted with a bullet in his belly in their barn. We see another sufferer at a neighbouring farm with more advanced symptoms, tantamount to zombiism in appearance and cannibalistic too, in theory. The Black Veil is not spread as a virus, contagion, bite or consequence of sin; it just happens. They eventually lose cognitive function and the ability to recognise loved ones, turning to cannibalism, though not in the classical sense as they consume humans who are already dead, utterly ambivalent to the living.

The Ones Who Grieve takes place during the 1880s or so, given references to historical events and what people like Nikola Tesla are up to. However, the entire visage of the film has the feel of the witch trials of the 15th or 16th centuries. The period detail is immaculate, from costumes to location scouting, so when it reveals that this is taking place much later than first appears, it’s quite the surprise. We do see something approaching modernity and the world of science, with a scientific effort to cure the Black Veil that touches upon the advent of electricity, presenting the revolutionary early uses of the technology as an opposite to the barbarity of Jacob’s Christian fundamentalism. This contrast of modernity eventually falls upon a town fundamentally of the Dark Ages. And of course, who should decry the travelling electricity salesman scientists as heathens and subject those nearby to an abusive diatribe but Jacob, so outraged that he violently assaults ‘the future’.

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I have buried the lead here, detailing the trimmings as opposed to what The Ones Who Grieve is materially about. It delves into that notion of humanity fostering the most monstrous traits, you know, “man is the real monster.” However, the extent is quite alarming and continues Quarxx’s form as a day-ruiner specialist.

The Ones Who Grieve presents an intense historical vision of the past, focused on a house of total religious authoritarianism. Jacob claims he would die for his wife and daughter, yet his behaviour suggests differently given the extent of control he exerts over his family. His treatment of anyone he sees as corrupted or ungodly is barbaric and inhumane. His peers describe him as a bad guy, yet he still cites Bible verses as justification, describing himself as “a soldier of God” to justify his violence. He’s a controlling monster whose humanity has long since gone. He’s super sexist too, though more common in the depicted times, it’s presented, like all of his traits, with unvarnished sadism. Through it all, the performance from Frémont is an unquestionably committed portrayal of the inhuman.

Described as a historical drama, that is technically correct but it does so with a cinematic language and penchant for suffering that makes many contemporary horror movies seem tame. Quarxx’s film doesn’t remains on a level of feverish hysteria, truly unpleasant by design. Add a rape scene, threatened incest, and a scene of genital mutilation and you have a real smorgasbord of cruelty. The first hour delivers the described levels of familial religious terror, slowly ratcheting up tension as Jacob’s patience runs dry and his mania grows in volatility. The second hour begins with Jacob suggesting that it is the end of days, which is nought but a ruse to showcase his lost sanity. The cherry on the top is coded as punishment and servitude for any female character through using the language and motifs of domestic abuse; Zélie states to a police officer that she tried to get help previously, and it just made things worse.

Zélie is a hopeful, dutiful, curious character; the viewer, like her, has to endure what the film offers at the hands of her father, a character tantamount to the devil himself. Rixhon embodies the role very well; her performance is excellent, humane, but at a certain point you grow to ask what else there is besides suffering. The performances are uniformly incredible, at their best when Jacob is on screen, but seeing him is one tangible horror after another. There is no escape into the supernatural.

Benjamin Leray’s score is excellent, almost biblical in its orchestral drama. As things start, it feels a size or two too large for the otherwise contained narrative. And then Jacob’s behaviour escalates almost uncontrollably the longer the film goes on, to the extent that the narrative eventually catches up with the tone of the piece. Everything becomes biblically barbaric, and the music becomes appropriate, helping cement the oppressive tone that Quarxx and co-writer Frederic Soulier penned. Of similar high stock is Antoine Carpentier’s cinematography, which masterfully uses naturalistic shade and light; it’s through his work that I came to the early inaccurate conclusion of when events are set. His part of that ruse makes The Ones Who Grieve as successful as it is.

Success is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. While unquestionably committed, stylistically consistent, and brilliantly well made, it’s also disturbing, grim, and unpleasant from frame one. If you can’t stomach strong movies that dwell in themes of extreme cinema, it’s not for you, which realistically means a vanishingly small audience will appreciate The Ones Who Grieve, especially given how rough it is with its female ensemble. Some will appreciate in Quarxx’s latest, those who appreciate that stories can touch all manner of moods, naturally incorporating the oppressive. While its themes are inconsistently addressed, it dangles a carrot of catharsis in front of you for the final stretch, suggesting the ordeal was worth it, that this historical variant of French extremity will pay off in a just way. Unfortunately, that passes, instead leaving things on the note whereby “women are there to be abused” is an inescapably core part of the text, adding another layer of grimness to an already difficult experience.

ROB’S ARCHIVE – THE ONES WHO GRIEVE