Majid Al Ansari’s THE VILE, a rare Muslim feminist horror film, has echoes of early Polanski
Majid Al Ansari ’s The Vile blends feminist themes and psychological terror, offering a rare Muslim horror film that recalls early Polanski.
There aren’t a whole lot of Muslim feminist horror films out there in our marketplace, but even if there were, Majid Al Ansari’s The Vile would probably stand out. It skillfully raises chills with a minimum of scary makeup or effects – there are some at the end, but mostly it’s the actors’ physicality and facial expressions that do the work, along with intense darknesses, like the kind in corridors of David Lynch movies.
Writer-director Al Ansari seems to be an Roman Polanski fan – Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby will come to mind in this tale of a woman who may or may not be going mad, and has every right to, since her absent husband just brought home a second wife without her foreknowledge or consent.
Polygamy isn’t necessarily a crime in the Muslim world, but it is still an emotional minefield. An Arab neighbor of mine once explained to me that, as he saw it, it’s a deliberate misreading of a rhetorical trap. You are allowed to have two wives if you can treat them equally, he said, but since treating them exactly equally is impossible, you’re meant to realize you aren’t supposed to do it, a caveat that many men choose to ignore for obvious reasons. Clearly not everyone interprets it that way, but The Vile suggests there may be some stigma, especially for kids whose father didn’t deem one mother to be enough.
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In The Vile, Khalid (Jasem AlKharraz) has taken a second wife because his first wife could only bear him a daughter, and he wants a son. The new wife, Zahra (Sarah Taiba) isn’t just younger and more conventionally attractive, but seems nicer too, quickly winning over Khalid’s artistic teenage daughter Noor (Eman Tarik). Amani (Bdoor Mohammed), the original wife, is older and more neurotic, and quickly goes to pieces…but not just over the fact that she now has to share her house with younger hotness banging her hubs. No, there’s more, like mysterious sudden blackouts, strange footsteps in the night, a TV behaving in ways a normal TV ought not, and strange noises coming from behind Zahra’s locked room.
Is Zahra deliberately messing with her? Is she losing her mind and hallucinating? Before all is said and done, both she and Noor will have to confront their deepest fears on a primal level, in a manner that may be all in their heads, or not.
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Al Ansari demonstrates an initial mastery of scares in a double fakeout of an intro that nonetheless foreshadows exactly what’s to come for real. After that, he settles into a groove that might fool you into thinking it’s another kind of movie (the poster is a bit of a giveaway, but was not seen by this writer prior to watching the film). Some of the early non-scary scenes even feel a bit pedestrian – when Zahra first reveals she’s pregnant, the camera pans across to her face, then tilts down toward her belly with all the grace of whoever’s clearly holding the heavy 16mm film camera. When things start to go bump in the night (and even the daytime in dark parts of the house), however, the pacing is expert-level. This isn’t one of those haunted house movies in which you know you’re just getting teased – when Amani goes to visit a former co-wife of Zahra’s, the creepiness is in broad daylight, and solely a function of the two actresses playing the scene.
When you’ve actually seen specifically Christian horror movies – and I’m not talking about, like, The Exorcist or even The Passion of the Christ, but actual fundie-friendly stuff like Robby Henson’s House or Ted Dekker’s Three – you might bring certain expectations regarding the conclusions of such a film from another religion. Therefore, one might expect reinforcement of the patriarchy in a Muslim movie, along similar lines. Ultimately, however, The Vile has a more traditional sense of actual morality rather than a male-centric traditionalism: Khalid’s having a penis is not a ticket to his redemption, much as he may think it is. (Like Kodi on the polygamy reality show Sister Wives, he seems a clueless douche tuned out to female concerns that aren’t about pleasing him.)
Eschewing standard horror tropes, the teenage girl isn’t the primary heroine, or “final girl” here either – ultimately, as in at least one of the Polanski films this one echoes, it’s a modest but faithful mother who is the moral center, and the only hope.
As the news daily brings us horrors from around the world, it’s nice to think that fictional horror can help to bring us together. The average American may know or understand very little about life in the United Arab Emirates, but thanks to movies like The Vile, we know that there are many personal anxieties in common, whether or not a “shared” spouse has the imprimatur of law. Certainly the evil stepmother is a global trope, and there are likely more good ones than bad…but only if the husband chooses wisely.
Majid Al Ansari The Vile
Q: What is Majid Al Ansari’s The Vile about?
A: The film follows a first wife’s descent into paranoia after her husband takes a younger second wife — blurring the lines between psychological trauma and supernatural terror.
Q: What makes The Vile a “Muslim feminist horror film”?
A: It portrays women’s experiences within a patriarchal context while challenging religious and cultural assumptions, giving voice to female suffering and resilience.
Q: How does it compare to Western horror films?
A: It echoes early Polanski in its tension and atmosphere, but rejects the victimhood of his heroines for a deeper, more moral resolution rooted in faith and empathy.
Majid Al Ansari’s The Vile blends feminist themes and psychological terror, offering a rare Muslim horror film that recalls early Polanski.