As an aspiring older woman, I love seeing older women be the problem in film. That is why Yerkezhan Baizhan’s Ürei was on my must-watch list for Fantastic Fest. I missed her short of the same name, which premiered at the fest in 2024, so I had no way of knowing this trip to grandma’s house would be deadly. Ürei is a sinister movie that takes twists and turns while constantly cranking up the heat. It’s a movie I didn’t see coming, and it has wicked surprises up its housecoat sleeves.
On The Way to Grandmother’s House
Aliya (Gulbahram Baybosynova) and her husband Askar (Asset Eszhan) are not happy. The two are, in fact, bickering when we meet them as they drive their daughter Kalmia (Akerke Kozaiyr) to Amina’s (Tynyshgul Sultanberdieva) house. Kalmia has gotten into trouble and her parents feel it will be for the best to drop her off at her grandmother’s house for a bit. What was starting to seem like a typical coming of age story soon takes a dark turn.
Amina has secrets and unhealed traumas that will be impacting her granddaughter in some very extreme ways. Many of us are familiar with generational trauma, and the genre is no stranger to the concept, but not like this. Ürei opens a house of horrors at grandmother’s house that you almost have to see to believe. This is especially chilling because many children are put into the hands of guardians who are often abusive. So, watching Kalmia fight for her life in the place she expected to be the safest is harrowing. The juxtaposition of her parents working on their own shit at their home, thinking they’ll pick her up after this extended stay is also brutal.
New Feel Bad Horror
Writer and director Baizhan never fully lets the audience relax once we get to Amina’s house. Things are immediately uneasy, claustrophobic, dark, and off. You might want to tell yourself it’s just the feeling of being a youth in an older person’s home that we all experienced. That stark reminder that we’re not immortal that comes with hard candies and hugs. However, Baizhan only uses that shared foundation as a jumping off point to more sinister things. Ürei provides Sultanberdieva a wicked playground to be the scary grandmother and captor while also asking you to have a little empathy for the devil.
Ürei reminds us that grief and guilt can mutate us into the worst versions of ourselves. It also serves as a hard reminder to seek help because we often hurt the ones we love. It’s the ultimate film for those of us in that weird part of life where you have to start auditing our relationships with our parents. We are justified in our feelings, but their refusal to work on their traumas make it hard to be around them. However, the clock is still ticking. For people who have kids it’s even harder. Will a shit parent make for a better (or worse) grandparent? Are you willing to let your kid(s) find out and risk continuing to pass the baton of trauma down the bloodline?
TMI
My maternal grandmother was an alcoholic who my mother refused to intervene on our behalf. When I was teen, I finally got fed up with the verbal abuse and stopped talking to her. It made things awkward when the old lady died a few years later because I had nothing nice to say about her. As an adult, I can respect how she got that way. I also have a better understanding of why my mom wasn’t equipped to be a mom for a lot of reasons. While Ürei wasn’t purposefully coming for me and my own baggage, I think it’s wonderful to have art that is unafraid to get dark. These are messy and complicated conversations, much like this complex feel bad horror movie. So, I’m not going to tell you this is a fun time. However, I am going to tell you it’s one of the harder and most rewarding watches of the festival.
Miss Sharai Bohannon
I am a playwright, aspiring screenwriter, podcaster, and a bunch of other words I’m not allowed to use here. I am one-half of the podcast 'Blerdy Massacre', and I host another podcast, ‘A Nightmare on Fierce Street’, as well. I have bylines at Fangoria, HorrorBuzz, Neon Splatter, NightTide Magazine, and some other cool online outlets. I can usually be found yelling about intersectional horror on some social media platform or another. I am also a proud member of CherryPicks, The Online Association of Female Film Critics, and Rotten Tomatoes. If you can’t tell, I’m really fun at parties.
