Majid Al Ansari’s The Vile is not a typical haunted house horror film. Instead, it is a slow-burn descent into grief, betrayal, and madness, filtered through a deeply cultural lens. Building on the promise of his debut Zinzana (Rattle the Cage), Al Ansari blends intimate family drama with nightmarish supernatural flourishes, creating a story that is as emotionally devastating as it is terrifying.
The setup is deceptively simple: Khaled, a husband and father, decides to bring home a second wife. His justification is chilling in its casualness: he claims it is better to do it in front of his wife than behind her back. That decision becomes a gut punch for Amani, his first wife, and their daughter Noor. When a bird dies just after the reveal, it sets the tone for the ominous spiral to come.
Al Ansari understands how to weaponize fear. He knows when to lean into darkness, when to let the frame linger, and when to puncture the quiet with something shocking. The score, eerie and textured, feels like Danny Elfman by way of Abu Dhabi, fusing gothic playfulness with traditional regional sounds. The result is a film that does not just scare, it unsettles on a deeper level.
Some of the most painful moments come not from ghosts but from people. Scenes where Noor is bullied by her classmates are heartbreaking in their simplicity. Kids can be cruel, and the daughter’s shame and isolation hit almost harder than the supernatural horrors. Noor also carries an especially heavy burden, blaming herself for her father’s decision to remarry. In her mind, if she had been a boy, perhaps her father would not have needed another child to carry on his name. It is a stark reminder of how deeply gender roles can shape the way children see themselves.
Amani, meanwhile, unravels in front of us. Watching her spiral is terrifying because of how relatable it feels, how do any of us cope with grief, stress, and uncertainty? The film captures that sense that our minds sometimes betray us, pushing us toward irrational fears. (I could not help but think of my own absurd dread of mistakenly sticking my hand into a running blender.) The imagery leans into that discomfort, whether it is subtle paranoia or the more extreme moment of a character being waterboarded with vomit.
The comparisons to The Shining feel apt. Like Jack Torrance, Amani is trapped in a house that mirrors her mental collapse. There is even an axe-to-the-door sequence, but here it is framed through a distinctly female perspective. We begin by thinking Amani is simply losing her grip on reality, consumed by grief and jealousy. But Al Ansari flips expectations. Was the second wife truly evil all along? Or was it all in their heads? The ambiguity keeps the story unnervingly alive.
While the film occasionally drags, some stretches feel like a slog, it never loses its grip. The curiosity it builds, the constant question of what is real and what is imagined, pulls you through even its slowest passages. And when the finale arrives, it does so with operatic flair: a funhouse of nightmares where every corner delivers another sting, another gasp, another shiver. It is as beautiful as it is terrifying.
Creepy, bold, and clever, The Vile shows a filmmaker who knows the genre inside and out. You can feel Al Ansari’s love of horror in every frame, from the way shadows stalk the edges of the house to the sudden, grotesque shocks. And yet, at its heart, this is a story about human weakness. Khaled’s greed destroys his family, Amani’s pain consumes her, and Noor is left to pick up the pieces of a legacy that was never hers to carry.
The Vile may not be an easy watch, but it is a powerful one. It lingers like a nightmare, unsettling because it feels so rooted in real fears: betrayal, powerlessness, and the terror of watching a loved one slip away into darkness.
Jessie Hobson