Director: Vahid Zarrabinasab

Cast: Pouria Poursorkh, Shaghayegh Farahani, Kaveh Khodashenas

Dakhmeh is a 2020 Iranian drama-horror film directed by Vahid Zarrabinasab, set in a drought-stricken village in central Iran where ancient ritual and rural superstition collide with desperate human need. The film runs 81 minutes and carries an atmosphere of dread rooted in pre-Islamic Zoroastrian funerary custom.

What is Dakhmeh about?

A remote village in the arid heartland of Iran has gone without rain for so long that its elders fear the land itself is dying. Driven by desperation and the weight of generations of folklore, the community's oldest men reach back to a forgotten rite — the Qanat Bride — a ceremony once used to call water from the earth. As preparations begin, younger villagers, including a man who has returned from outside, grow uneasy. Old tensions surface between those who cling to tradition and those who sense that reviving a buried ritual may unleash something far darker than a dry season. The film builds its tension slowly, letting the parched landscape and the community's fractures speak louder than any monster.

Cast & crew

The film stars Pouria Poursorkh as the central figure navigating the community's crisis, alongside Shaghayegh Farahani, who brings quiet intensity to a role caught between loyalty and doubt. Kaveh Khodashenas rounds out the principal cast. Director Vahid Zarrabinasab draws restrained performances from all three leads, keeping the horror grounded in recognisable human behaviour rather than spectacle.

Context & significance

Dakhmeh draws on one of the most charged corners of Iranian folk memory: the pre-Islamic ritual landscape that survived centuries of suppression and lives on in rural practice. For the diaspora, horror films that excavate Iranian village tradition carry a particular weight — they surface a version of homeland culture rarely shown in urban or comedic fare. The word dakhmeh itself refers to a Zoroastrian tower of silence, a site where the dead were exposed to the elements, and the film leans on that imagery of ancient death-rites bleeding into present-day despair. Genre horror set in rural Iran is rare; Zarrabinasab's film occupies that space seriously.

Where & how to watch

Dakhmeh is available on K-Time with the original Persian audio. Watch in your browser, on your TV, or on your phone — no extra download or VPN required. Cancel anytime.