Some films I admire more than I enjoy fall squarely into that category, and Ürei is one of them. Written and directed by Yerkezhan Baizhan, the Kazakh horror film is bleak, unsettling, and at times genuinely difficult to watch. It is also very well done. Baizhan expands the story from her 2024 short film of the same name into an 80-minute feature, and the longer format gives the dread plenty of time to settle in.
The story centers on 14-year-old Kalima, played by Akerke Kozaiyr, who is sent to stay with her aging grandmother, Amina, played by Tynyshgul Sultanberdieva, in a rural village in Kazakhstan. What begins as an ordinary family obligation gradually becomes something much darker as isolation, guilt, grief, and fear blur together. The film turns a simple visit between a granddaughter and grandmother into an increasingly disturbing descent, where loss takes on almost monstrous proportions.
What affected me most was Kalima’s vulnerability. Horror involving children can easily feel manipulative, but here the danger surrounding her never feels cheap. Instead, it creates a constant unease because she is trapped in circumstances she does not fully understand and cannot control. That made the increasingly bloody moments much harder to watch.
Baizhan does not rush the film. The tension builds slowly, and the rural setting deepens the sense of isolation. There is very little comfort in this world. The landscape, the grandmother’s frailty, and the sense that something is deeply wrong work together to create an oppressive atmosphere without becoming visually excessive.
The performances help ground the film. Kozaiyr gives Kalima a believable mix of fear, confusion, and youthful frustration, while Sultanberdieva brings Amina a painful physical vulnerability. Their relationship gives the horror an emotional center, making what happens around them even more disturbing.
There is violence here, and some of it is hard to watch, but Ürei doesn’t rely on gore alone. Its real horror stems from grief, helplessness, and the fear of what can happen when care, responsibility, and loss become entangled. That emotional weight stayed with me longer than the bloodshed.
I cannot really say I “liked” Ürei. It is too grim for that, and there were moments when I wanted relief from its darkness. But I respected it. The film is intense, controlled, and deeply unsettling, and it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do.
Ürei was not one of the most enjoyable films I saw at Fantastic Fest 2026, but it was certainly one of the more haunting. I left feeling disturbed rather than entertained, and in this case, that felt entirely intentional.