Long before Abdullah Bin Haider encountered supernatural creatures on the set of Kaa’inaat, they inhabited the farms and mountain landscapes surrounding his childhood home in Khor Fakkan.
The veteran Emirati actor was raised on folk tales about ghosts and spirits lurking around the coastal community, some malevolent and others regarded as long-standing otherworldly residents.
“A common refrain we heard from our elders was, ‘Don’t go walking into the farms at night, because you will not be alone,’” he recounts to The National.
“These stories came from myth and folklore, and in some cases, they were specific to the region of the UAE you came from. In Khor Fakkan, we had the farms and the coast, so the stories were based around them.
“When you grow up in that environment, you become hyper-aware as a child. You imagine hearing sounds, and my friends and I would just start running. Many of us lived our childhood and adolescence based on these myths and beliefs.”
In Bin Haider’s family home, otherworldly beings were commonly accepted as possible neighbours of the tight-knit community.
“When I was a child, I remember my grandmother would put food outside our house,” he says. “When I asked her why, she laughed and smiled and walked away, leaving me without an answer. I kept insisting until one day she told me, ‘So that the other world, or the parallel world, gets a chance to eat.'”
These memories and intergenerational oral tales inform Kaa’inaat, an Emirati supernatural horror series that has returned for a second season, now streaming in full on StarzPlay with English subtitles.
Produced by Abu Dhabi Media Network and regarded as one of the UAE’s first television horror series, the second season of Kaa’inaat retains some of its main characters while telling a stand-alone story.
It follows a group of friends trapped by thick fog in a coastal village, where they discover something amiss with the residents and water supply.
Bin Haider plays Al-Doukhi, a herbalist whose knowledge of plants and remedies helps the group confront supernatural beings, including Athyoun, an entity that possesses its victims, and Bu Daryah, a fish-scaled creature that has terrorised seafarers in Gulf folklore.
The actor said the gloomy location shoots in the villages and valleys of Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah added a tension that translated to the screen.
“We were working in an environment that wasn’t easy, whether because of the things we imagined or the insects and reptiles present in these areas, especially keeping in mind that we were filming in the summer,” he says.
“The most terrifying experience for me was in Fujairah, in the Al Hayl area. This area is deep inside the valleys and mountains. Even travelling there is exhausting because the road is unpaved and people rarely visit. All you see are virtually empty farms with one person tending each space during the day.
“At night, it was just us, the empty farms and the electrical generators. With how tired we were, it made some of us jumpy, which made the acting more authentic.”
Conjuring this spectral world is Egyptian screenwriter Marwa Al Deeb. Her long-standing interest in horror and fantasy led her to the Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures in Emirati Heritage, compiled by Emirati folklorist Dr Abdulaziz Al Musallam and published by the Sharjah Institute for Heritage in 2017.
The research informed several of the series' supernatural figures, including Khataf Rifai, a maritime being said to resemble the sails of a vessel at sea; Rouaan, inspired by tales of a sailor with a split personality; and Hessa and her children, a family of ghosts drawn from Emirati folklore.
“The whole point was how to create a universe out of it. We had to connect the dots, and that was more important than horror itself,” Al Deeb notes.
“It is about how to play on that and create a universe. Everybody has this nostalgia, but when they see those childhood stories on screen, it turns into something different.”
Kaa’inaat is the latest example of the Emirati television industry expanding its ambitions through genre and narrative scope.
Bin Haider has been prominent in that leap, appearing in ambitious Emirati television productions over the past decade.
They include starring in the 2023 series Slave Market, set at the beginning of the 20th century and following five interweaving stories about people drawn into slavery across different countries.
He also appeared as part of the international ensemble cast of Al Boom, which returned for a second season in 2025 and follows the epic adventures of Shihab as he grows from a seafarer into a successful international businessman. His trajectory echoes the UAE’s development from a maritime trading society into a global business centre.
“There is more focus on creating elite, high-production works that represent a complete shift in the trajectory of drama in the UAE,” Bin Haider says.
“One very important thing is that they have produced actors whose talents were previously overlooked. They stood out significantly and proved that they are talented and deserve a chance. They lived up to the trust and delivered a very high performance.”
While Al Deeb is pleased there was demand for a second season of Kaa’inaat, she says more locally inspired stories remain unexplored on screen.
“I believe that if we have a good story, we do it, whatever the genre is,” she says. “As long as we follow good stories and not trends, then I think we will be in a great place.”
Kaa’inaat is now streaming on StarzPlay
