Two Types of Monsters

Review of the series «Kazakh Scary Tales»

I generally try to avoid horror films due to their destructive impact on the psyche. However, I occasionally make exceptions for various reasons. For instance, I deeply admire the Czech folk-fantasy film Kytice (Wild Flowers) for its beauty and poetic nature — an anthology of poems by the Czech folklorist Karel Jaromír Erben brought to the screen.

The series «Kazakh Scary Tales» (2025), directed by the Kazakh filmmaker Adilkan Yerzhanov, became another such exception. It is a «hodgepodge» of detective fiction, fantasy, horror, dystopia, post-punk, a parody of Tim Burton’s work (Sleepy Hollow, Wednesday), and folklore.

Note: Words in Kazakh and Kyrgyz are hereafter written in italics.

The Plot

Birzhan, an urban investigator, is transferred to Karatas — a settlement lost in the Kazakh steppe. Dishonest, cynical, yet perceptive, the young man begins investigating mysterious deaths, seeking help from a local clairvoyant, Sara, and a pathologist, Olmes.

«Kazakh Scary Tales» consists of several disconnected «tales»: one about a maternity hospital, one about a boarding school, and another about a car accident. The personal stories of the protagonists, Birzhan and Sara, are woven into these investigations, binding all cases into a single narrative. While unraveling the mysteries, they discover that the otherworldly forces of albasty, zheztyrnaq, su peri, qasqyr, and *ubbe* are not just fictional demons from folklore, but a reality of the modern world as well. A local man, driven to madness, screams that the cause of the evil in Karatas is the desecration of a local mazar* (a sacred site).

**In the Kyrgyz language, these are albarsty, zheztyrmak, suu peri, and karyshkyr; however, I could not find a demononym corresponding to «ubbe».*

Folk Motifs

In recent years, ethnic themes in cinematography — as in other forms of art and fashion — have become a trend in our countries (and globally). In both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, more films are being produced in the genres of ethno-fantasy, ethno-horror, and folk-horror, featuring albarsty, mastan, and other characters from pre-Islamic Turkic mythology. I haven’t watched any of them for the reason mentioned in the first paragraph, so I cannot judge them.

However, «Kazakh Scary Tales» is not exactly ethno-horror. Although Adilkhan Yerzhanov used demononyms from epics, myths, and legends, he did so through his own interpretation. The appearance of the mythical creatures is non-stereotypical; they lack any traditional folkloric traits. In fact, they look somewhat grotesque, like living scarecrows. This brings us back to an episode in the series where the head doctor of the maternity hospital, Birzhan (the investigator’s namesake), hypnotizes his stepdaughter Lyazzat, making her repeat lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

This deliberate simplicity in the monsters’ appearance is a specific stylistic device, much like the careless makeup resembling the stage paint of the rock band Kiss.

All this is because the author clearly had no intention of merely reproducing Turkic or Kazakh folk art, or filming a high-octane action piece with special effects and CGI. Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s cinema is always addressed to social issues in Kazakhstan. In his films, ordinary people suffer from the injustice and tyranny of the wealthy and influential, or from the criminal underworld. Granted, these events always take place in the same fictional village with the telling name Karatas, which leaves a small window to claim they are merely a product of the author’s imagination. However, despite a certain surrealism in the storytelling, these plots are deeply recognizable and true to life.

This time, his «tales» are stories we constantly read about in the press or see in news reports and daily life: stories of violence against women and children, unpunished crimes, corruption, and bureaucracy. And they are truly terrifying. Thus, Yerzhanov’s series is, in its essence, more of a social drama than ethno-horror (though I now sleep with the lights on).

Women

Adilkhan Yerzhanov deviates from the traditional interpretation of folklore creatures. His zheztyrnaq has iron claws instead of copper ones, as the demononym itself would suggest. Albasty and su peri are girls driven to despair. While the mythical wolf is a totemic animal for Turkic peoples, the qasqyr in «Kazakh Scary Tales» is akin to the werewolf of Western legends. Both the qasqyr and zheztyrnaq inherited their demonic nature genetically, yet it awakens only under specific circumstances. They can suppress it and live as ordinary people. Generally, the conditions for transforming into a monster are resentment, a thirst for revenge, and embarking on the path of evil.

Olmes tells Birzhan and Sara:

«There have always been monsters in the steppe. A whole pantheon. And for some reason, they are mostly women. I don’t know why. Perhaps because they had no rights, and anyone could hurt them. And all that rage turned into an irrational, universal evil.»

According to legend, the albasty is a female demon who appears to people at night while they sleep, pressing on their chests and suffocating them. In Kazakh belief, the albasty steals the organs of a woman in labor and rushes with them to the water; as soon as she dips them in, the woman dies (1). In «Kazakh Scary Tales,» a girl named Lyazzat turns into an albasty due to an incomplete hypnosis combined with anesthesia, administered by her stepfather to perform a forced abortion. Now, she wanders Karatas at night as a massive beast, digging up and devouring the corpses of deceased infants and attacking lone travelers in the steppe.

What happened to her child? After her transformation, did the pregnancy stop, did she miscarry, or did she give birth and eat the baby? What is the reason behind devouring infant corpses? Is this for Lyazzat-albasty, like for Medea in Greek mythology, an expression of fury, grief, and revenge? Medea killed her children after the betrayal of their father, Jason. The girl in «Kazakh Scary Tales» became pregnant, as I understand it, by her stepfather. Can her devouring first her own and then others’ newborns be interpreted as retribution against Birzhan, the head doctor of the maternity ward, for the violence inflicted upon her? Or is there no logic in her actions, only animal hunger?

The revenge of the girl Raia, who turned into a su peri (water spirit) after committing suicide, follows a clear logic: she first killed two brothers who had raped and tormented her during her life, and then came for the third, Arman, who, although he did not hurt her, remained silent and failed to protect her.

I have developed several interpretations of these two images. First: resentment turns us into monsters; it destroys our souls. Because of this feeling, Lyazzat and Raia are neither living nor dead, but Eliot’s «hollow men.» They are stuck between worlds, as if in Dante Alighieri’s Limbo — the first circle of Hell. It was this same feeling that awakened the zheztyrnaq nature in Bolat, who simply wanted to be an ordinary man.

The second interpretation relates to Olmes’ words about female rage giving birth to non-humans. In real life, girls and women who face violence often remain silent and endure it. If a girl is raped, her parents and the perpetrator’s family negotiate and marry them off to «hide the shame.» If she is kidnapped for marriage, she lives with the abductor and bears his children. Husbands cheat on and beat their wives, yet they are not afraid to eat the food prepared by them, turn their backs to them, or sleep beside them. Men know: a wife will not poison them, stab them in the back, smother them with a pillow in their sleep, or even curse them. It would seem that female nature is synonymous with submissiveness, humility, and forgiveness. Thus, violence and revenge are seen as something unnatural for a woman, though natural for a man. In the eyes of society, a vengeful woman is no longer a human, but a monster.

In my review of the film *Öch, I wrote: «And so, excessive abuse turned the angelic Jyldyz into a mad demon: she brutally and bloodily dealt with both the four rapists and her despotic mother-in-law… In the finale, investigator Kamchybek drives her from the village to the city, but stops along the way, exits the car, and points a gun at her.»* Why did Kamchybek decide to kill Jyldyz with his own hands without trial or investigation? In his perception as a man, a vengeful woman is an evil spirit. Although in that realistic film the protagonist remained human, and my words about a «demon» were a metaphor for the madness of her rage.

In «Kazakh Scary Tales,» two girls who endured long-term violence literally turned into monsters. The policeman Birzhan killed the albasty*. In this, the protagonist is like Perseus slaying Medusa. Remember the Greek myth of one of the Gorgon sisters? Fleeing from Poseidon, she ran into the temple of Athena, where her pursuer caught and raped her. The gods considered this a desecration of the sanctuary and ordered Athena to punish her. Not the rapist, but the victim — for daring to seek protection in a house of god. The goddess turned the unfortunate woman into a monster, and later Perseus killed Medusa, who was pregnant by Poseidon.

Were these kind fairy tales, Lyazzat would have been disenchanted and returned to her true self. But these are scary tales, far too similar to reality. Modern society, like the ancient Greek gods and heroes, does not care about the reasons that made a person evil, why they conflict with the world, or why they commit crimes. Only the rules matter to society. Anyone who does not conform to public morality must be condemned, isolated, exiled, or destroyed, rather than understood, pitied, or offered a helping hand. Because that person is already irreversibly dangerous to everyone.

*The series does not relish in depictions of rape; the viewer is simply made to understand that it occurred without showing the process itself. I find it necessary to note this in light of the current situation in the cinematography of Kyrgyzstan.

The Meaning of Names

In Kazakh, Birzhan means «one soul» or «one person.» Sara is the name of the wife of the Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim), the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Olmes translates to «immortal.» Lyazzat comes from Arabic and means «pleasure» or «delight»; the author likely chose it for its slight phonetic resemblance to Nabokov’s Lolita, a heroine who also was raped by her stepfather. The name Raia (possibly a shortened version of Raikhan) was likely selected for its consonance with the Russian word for «paradise» (ray), creating a stark contrast with the surrounding hell. Bolat means «steel» or «steel blade,» and Karatas translates to «black stone.»

Monsters

This raises a question: who are the monsters, truly? Is it a label society slaps on outcasts? Is it those who have transgressed morality, state laws, and divine commandments? Or should we fear real people rather than mythical creatures?

Birzhan the investigator gradually turns into a wolf. But isn’t his corrupt superior the real «werewolf in uniform,» torturing suspects and fabricating successful crime-solving statistics? In a literal nod to the proverb «a wolf in sheep’s clothing,» he constantly wears a sheepskin vest over his police uniform.

Incidentally, in the censored version, this police chief’s face is blurred out. I initially assumed the director had placed genitalia on his forehead to emphasize the character’s vile nature (a reference to the popular Kazakh insult *“k***bas”). But no: it turns out the actor playing the role was «canceled» in Kazakhstan following a scandal…

Birzhan, the head doctor of the maternity hospital, does not even hide the fact that he considers himself a monster. In fairy tales, the deaths of mothers and newborns can be blamed on mystical forces; in real life, however, the causes are boiling instruments in electric kettles (one can hardly call it «sterilization»), placing laboring women in corridors, and other consequences of corruption and underfunding.

And aren’t his wife or Raia’s uncle — those who failed to protect the girls from rape — the very embodiment of vileness? In the series, people feared the albasty and the su peri, but while they were alive, those girls feared their own relatives. If «non-humans» are defined as those who strike fear into everyone, then don’t rapists fit that description?

Perhaps there are more than two rape victims in «Kazakh Scary Tales»: by whom and at what age did the ubbe give birth? At 13 or 15?

In Yerzhanov’s series, men are horrified by their victims rising against them, while in real life, women live in constant fear of men…

Retribution

Olmes is puzzled as to why Raia did not kill the father of the rapist brothers — a man who knew what was happening but remained silent. Sara explains that the su peri reacts to feelings of guilt, and the father in question (who also happens to be the director of the boarding school) did not consider himself guilty.

— «So it turns out that ‘up there,’ they think that someone who turns a blind eye to evil — even if they feel guilty — is just as guilty as the one who committed the evil?» the pathologist muses.

— «And what if no one knows anything ‘up there,’ and no one knows anything ‘down here’? What if we are the only ones who decide what is good and what is evil?» Sara asks in response.

This thought likely occurs to anyone who has ever wondered why evil so often goes unpunished, while good remains unappreciated. Observing life, it truly seems as though arrogant and shameless scoundrels thrive, while conscientious and humble people suffer through a series of misfortunes.

The demons of Kazakh and Turkic folklore belong to ancient pagan beliefs; I am not an expert in them, so I cannot make definitive claims. However, in the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism), God knows everything, yet temporarily allows the devil to commit evil (2). In the Bible, Satan is repeatedly referred to as the «prince of this world» (3). His power is limited only when it comes to believers (4).

If we consider the abusers to be the true monsters rather than the albasty or su peri, does that make resentment itself an evil? Isn’t it a natural reaction of protest against injustice and oppression? Isn’t it the processing of grief and pain? Not all resentment is the same. In some cases, for the weak, this feeling is the only means of restoring justice: if they cannot protect themselves, they can at least repay evil with hatred, can they not?

How can we reproach a raped woman for her rage, if forgiveness would mean the acceptance of violence? The victim’s soul rebels against the harm inflicted upon her and against the perpetrators because she disagrees; she does not accept what happened to her and considers it wrong.

Although Yerzhanov’s characters appear to be wretched, dissatisfied souls thirsting for personal revenge, they are nonetheless spirits of justice. They serve as a reminder to society that retribution for evil exists. In life, the victims cannot protect themselves, but once they gain supernatural powers, they deal with the villains.

People

Investigator Birzhan, not waiting for divine retribution, took it upon himself to punish criminals personally. However, his motivation was self-interest: he believed this was the only way to prevent his own transformation into a wolf.

I have two theories regarding the meaning of Birzhan’s transformation.

Theory One. Adilkhan Yerzhanov cites the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: «He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.» These words were published in Beyond Good and Evil within a collection of aphorisms, devoid of context. Thus, we are left to guess the author’s intent. But based on the overarching themes of Nietzsche’s work, one might assume he refers to fanatical crusaders for «good» as they define it. This quote resonates with the saying by Soviet and Russian philosopher Grigory Pomerants: «The devil begins with the foam on the lips of an angel who has entered the battle for a holy and just cause, for good, for truth, for justice.»

Fanaticism and distortion are not limited to religion. People fall into extremes when debating politics, art, education, healthcare, parenting, and — especially — morality and public interest.

In one episode, Birzhan and his father butcher a wolf carcass. Later, attempting to suppress his inner qasqyr and remain human, he consumes the hearts of the demons and people he has killed. Here lies the paradox: some become monsters by avenging their tormentors, while others set out on a path of killing to avoid becoming monsters themselves. As the investigator hunted supernatural evil across the steppe — like an inquisitor hunting heretics and «witches» — he began to resemble a wolf more and more. What finally helped him was his refusal to kill the last monster of Karatas: the ubbe. Does this mean he became human by ceasing to persecute the wretched?

Theory Two. Or perhaps Birzhan only regained his human facade, returning to the corrupt cop he was before his encounter with the mystical? After all, wouldn’t it be easier for him to live in human society now? Does being «human» simply mean being a scoundrel? In this world, perhaps yes — because these are scary tales, not kind ones.

As a journalist, I understand this all too well. In theory, members of the press, much like law enforcement, should be honest, impartial, and uncompromising. In practice, as the saying goes: «Yesterday we looked for the truth at work; today we’re looking for another job.» I have long ceased to judge colleagues who align themselves with the «Reds» or the «Whites» — everyone has children to feed. And one is lucky if the search only leads to a new income source, a lawyer, or asylum in another country — rather than a plot in a cemetery. Worst of all, it often feels futile. It’s like the parable from Tarkovsky’s film Nostalghia:

«…one man saves another from a huge, deep puddle… And the rescued man asks: ‘What are you doing?’ — ‘What do you mean? I saved you!’ — ‘You fool! I live there!’»

For some, the puddle — deceit, evil, lack of freedom — is their natural habitat.

The protagonist of Kazakh Scary Tales did not close cases by framing the innocent of his own free will. He was pressured by a shrewish wife, a constantly demeaning father, superiors, and colleagues. People in this world are divided into two categories: those who are bastards from birth, and those who were simply broken. The former hold power, influence, and resources; the latter are helpless and unarmed (5).

Thus, we are all a bit of both — monsters and humans — depending on whether we still have something to lose, or nothing at all. Sara recounted to Birzhan the words of her adoptive grandmother:

«She told me that there are monsters in the world. They are inside each of us. Sometimes, they come out.»

At the beginning of this article, I wrote that I try to avoid horror films due to their destructive influence on the psyche. But not all «horrors» are created equal. Some are made only to scare, without meaning. Yerzhanov has a different goal: he shows us real life in a way that makes us realize just how monstrous it truly is.

— «I don’t really like scary movies,» Raia tells Arman in the series. He replies:

— «You should. When you’re afraid, you become better… Fear is like medicine. You take it — and something bad dies inside you.»

Aliia MOLDALIEVA, 2026

Series Information

• Year & Country of Production: 2025, Kazakhstan
• Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Thriller, Mystery
• Director & Screenwriter: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
• Producers: Timur Bairov, Ablaikhan Ashimov, Alisher Utev, et al.
• Cinematographer: Yerkinbek Ptyraliyev
• Production Designers: Yermek Utegenov, Ruslan Li, Andrey Tsirulnik
• Editor: Alisher Kagarmanov
• Running Time: 10 episodes (approx. 35 min each)
• Language: Russian, Kazakh
• Cast: Kuantay Abdimadi, Anna Starchenko, Dinara Baktybaeva, Aziz Beyshenaliev, Shah-Murat Ordabaev, Daniyar Alshinov, Assel Kaliyeva, Aibar Saly, Sanzhar Madi

References

1. Yulia Naumova. The Demonological Character «Albasty» in Kazakh Birthing Rituals: Functions and Attributes. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/demonologicheskiy-personazh-albasty-v-rodilnoy-obryadnosti-kazahov-funktsii-i-atributy
2. 1 John 5:19. https://www.bible.com/ru/bible/compare/1JN.5.19
3. John 8:44. https://bible.by/verse/43/8/44/
4. Ephesians 2:2. John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11. https://www.bible.com/ru/bible/compare/JHN.14.30
5. Luke 22:31. Also: Job 1:12. https://www.gotquestions.org/Russian/Russian-God-allow-satan-attack.html.
6. Allusions to quotes from the films The Needle (directed by Rashid Nugmanov) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (directed by Sergio Leone).