Director: Kourosh Ahari
Cast: Shahab Hosseini, Kathreen Khavari, Elester Latham
The Night is a 2020 Iranian-American horror-thriller directed by Ahari, following a young Iranian couple whose late-night stay at an eerie Los Angeles hotel spirals into a harrowing ordeal that forces them to confront the buried secrets tearing their marriage apart.
What is The Night about?
Babak and Neda, a married Iranian-American couple, are driving home with their infant daughter after a gathering with friends when exhaustion pushes them to check into a roadside hotel for the night. What begins as an ordinary stopover quickly turns sinister: the hotel seems to resist their every attempt to leave, the staff grow increasingly unsettling, and strange visions begin pressing in from the edges of reality. As the hours stretch impossibly long, each disturbing event peels back another layer of what the couple has kept hidden from each other. The hotel becomes a pressure cooker where suppressed guilt and unspoken truths can no longer be avoided.
Cast & crew
Shahab Hosseini, the acclaimed Iranian actor known for his intense dramatic range, leads the film as Babak, delivering a quietly anguished performance. Kathreen Khavari brings emotional grounding to Neda, making the couple's fracturing bond feel painfully real. Elester Latham rounds out key supporting presence. Director Ahari coaxes restrained, atmospheric tension from his cast throughout.
Context & significance
Shot almost entirely in English and Farsi — a bilingual texture that mirrors the dual identity many Iranian diaspora families know firsthand — The Night holds a rare distinction: it is the first American horror film passed by Iran's Ministry of Culture for domestic screening. For Persian-speaking viewers abroad, the film speaks directly to the emotional weight of immigrant life: the fractures that can form inside a marriage when one culture's expectations collide with another, when secrets fester under the pressure of assimilation. It draws on classic psychological horror traditions — the claustrophobic hotel, the night that will not end — but grounds them in a specifically Iranian emotional register that resonates far beyond genre conventions.
Where & how to watch
The Night is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing. Watch on your TV, laptop, or phone — no VPN required, no geo-blocking, no extra download needed. Start a subscription and cancel anytime.