Moshari (2022)
Short horror films occupy a curious corner of the genre. Freed from the obligation to pad a story to feature length, the best of them can land a single, well-aimed punch and walk away clean. Moshari (2022) is one such film: a Bangladeshi production running to around twenty-two minutes, set during what appears to be a societal collapse, in which two sisters take shelter inside a mosquito net while something outside in the dark makes survival far from certain. The premise is stripped to its bones, and that economy is entirely intentional.
The film is the work of Nuhash Humayun, a Bangladeshi director who has made something of a name for himself through short-form genre work produced with an international eye. Born in Dhaka and educated abroad, Humayun represents a genuinely interesting new wave of filmmakers bringing South Asian settings and sensibilities to horror on their own terms, rather than through the filter of Western genre conventions. Moshari was produced through a collaboration between Little Big Films, Left Handed Films, and, notably, Monkeypaw Productions, the production company founded by Jordan Peele. Riz Ahmed also served as executive producer, which gives you a fair sense of the pedigree assembled behind what is, by any conventional measure, a small independent short. That level of backing for a sub-half-hour film from Bangladesh is unusual enough to be worth remarking on, and it speaks to the confidence those involved had in Humayun's vision. The film screened at a number of festivals before reaching wider audiences online, and it drew comparisons to the kind of tight, high-concept genre filmmaking that Peele himself helped rehabilitate with Get Out. If you've been following recent horror from outside the Hollywood mainstream, including films like When Evil Lurks or Tiger Stripes, then Moshari fits naturally into that growing conversation about what horror can look like when it is rooted in somewhere specific.
The cast is small, which is really the only sensible approach given a story this contained. Sunerah Binte Kamal and Nairah Onora Saif play the two sisters at the centre of the film, and the weight of the whole thing rests almost entirely on their shoulders and the space between them. Moyed Bhuiyan appears in a supporting capacity. Kamal, who has worked across Bangladeshi film and television, brings a grounded, watchful quality to her role, and Saif, noticeably younger, holds her own in what is a physically and emotionally demanding performance for such a confined setting. The mosquito net itself, a mundane household object transformed into the film's central symbol of fragile safety, becomes almost a third presence on screen. It is worth noting too that the film's Bangladeshi setting is not incidental window dressing. Mosquito nets carry real, lived significance in much of South and South-East Asia, which gives the film's central conceit a resonance that a straight Western horror premise simply could not replicate. For a sense of how Bangladeshi cinema has handled human vulnerability and survival in very different registers, it is worth a glance at earlier work covered on this site, including The Padma Boatman and Dhanmalhi, both of which show how much that national cinema has historically asked of small casts in pressured circumstances.
I quite enjoyed Moshari, the short horror film from Bangladesh directed by Nuhash Humayun and executive produced by Jordan Peele and Riz Ahmad. It's got a little bit of a zombie apocalypse vibe to it, but kept tightly focused on two sisters trying to stay alive inside a mosquito net while something outside hunts them. The premise is brilliantly simple: the net is your only protection, and even the smallest tear could be fatal. That tension (knowing safety is fragile, temporary, and literally threadbare) carries the whole film.
What I'm still not entirely sure about, even after watching it, is whether the threat is really supernatural or just a clever metaphor for how dangerous a tiny gap in a mosquito net can be in the real world. And honestly? That ambiguity works in its favour. The film is genuinely unsettling at times, not just because of what's outside the net, but because of what the sisters reveal about themselves under pressure. The jump scares are well-earned, not cheap, and the cinematography (considering the confined setting) is surprisingly effective at building dread without relying on flashy tricks.
It's not perfect, mind you. At short-film length, there's only so much character development you can squeeze in, and some of the dialogue feels a touch expository. But for a contained, high-concept horror piece made on what I imagine was a modest budget, it punches well above its weight. The fact that Peele and Ahmad backed it tells you something about its potential, and Humayun delivers on that promise without overreaching.
Moshari is a really decent short horror film, tense, smart, and genuinely creepy without needing gallons of blood or endless CGI. If you're a fan of atmospheric, idea-driven horror, it's well worth ten minutes of your time. And if you come away still wondering whether you just watched a monster movie or a public-health parable? Well, that's probably the point.
Moshari arrives at a moment when short-form horror is quietly having something of a renaissance, helped along by streaming platforms that have made twenty-minute films easier to find than they were in the DVD era. Humayun's film sits comfortably alongside recent international horror shorts that treat the genre as a vehicle for ideas rather than just atmosphere, and the involvement of Peele and Ahmed suggests it will not be the last we hear of him. Whether Moshari converts you fully or simply leaves you wanting to see what Humayun does with a feature-length canvas, it is a polished but unsettling reminder that sometimes the most frightening thing in a room is the size of the hole in your safety net.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-06-08
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Moshari (2022) on YouTube
Where to watch (US)
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
