Under the Shadow

Ingeniously carving a ghost story on top of its grim setting, Under the Shadow is a smartly crafted, patiently narrated & brilliantly performed Persian horror that makes excellent use of its foreboding atmosphere to deliver the chills, and remains a highly gripping & deeply uncomfortable experience from start to finish.

Set in 1980s Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, the story of Under the Shadow follows a mother & her daughter who find themselves being haunted by a mysterious entity in their house after refusing to leave the war-torn city. As more residents leave the building, the paranormal incidents only intensifies inside their apartment.

Written & directed by Babak Anvari in what's his directional debut, Under the Shadow is a fusion of family drama & haunted house horror, with former focusing on its character's struggle to cope with the aftereffects of Iranian revolution while the latter coming to life on its own amidst the disturbing & troubled era of Iran.

Its timeline & setting play a vital role in establishing a sinister environment where evil can flourish, and Anvari takes ample time to familiarise the audience with the protagonist's predicament before letting the supernatural entity make its presence felt. And further amplifying its eerie vibe n tone is its fluid camera-work, tight editing & stellar use of sound.

Spearheading the acting department is Narges Rashidi in the role of the mother who's still reeling from the revolution's impact on her life, which only worsens when a series of inexplicable activities begin unfolding in her apartment. And supporting her all the way through is Avin Manshadi who is in as her daughter and both of them play their part convincingly.

On an overall scale, Under the Shadow is a confidently directed, deftly written & exquisitely paced chiller that's encapsulated with an ominous atmosphere and packs genuinely effective moments of suspense over the course of its 84 minutes runtime. Haunting, thought-provoking & brimming with the undercurrent of post-revolution effect on everyday life, this Persian horror is definitely worth your time & money.

In the 80's, during the war between the Islamic post-revolutionary Iran and Iraq, the former leftist medical student Shideh (Narges Rashidi) tries to return to the university but is barred by the dean. The upset Shideh returns home and when her husband Dr. Iraj (Bobby Naderi) is assigned to work in a war zone, she refuses to move to his parent's house with their daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). Shideh prefers to stay in her apartment with Dorsa, who loves her doll Kimia and has constant fever. Dorsa is afraid of demoniac Djinns and when Shideh asks who told her about the legend, she tells that her friend that lives downstairs. Shideh visits her neighbor and asks his mother to tell her son to not tell horror stories to Dorsa and she learns that the boy is mute. Then Kimia and Shideh's Jane Fonda workout tape disappear. When a missile strikes their building, the neighbors decide to leave Tehran, but Shideh stays in the apartment with Dorsa, who is increasingly disturbed. Soon Shideh reads about Djinns and finds that there is an evil entity in the apartment. Further she must find Kimia; otherwise Dorsa will be in danger since the Djinn will be attached to her.

"Under the Shadow" is an atmospheric and spooky ghost story in an unusual environment – Tehran in the 80's. The difference to the Western cultures is another attraction of this film, such as punishment of the woman for not wearing headscarf or for having a videocassette at home. The story has elements from "The Babadook" but is better than the 2014 film. The conclusion is open for a sequel, like most of the films of this genre. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available.

The first thing that stood out about this film was it's unique setting for a horror flick, it take's place in 1980's Iran during War Of The Cities. Our main character Shideh (Played by Narges Rashidi) has just learned that she won't be able to attend Medical school due to her background in activism. On top of all that her husband is being drafted to fight in the war leaving Shideh in a war torn country raising her daughter alone. The whole set up/first half was excellent, the acting is believable and director does a great job of establishing a tense tone. It definitely did not feel like the usual set up to a horror movie, in fact if I hadn't known before hand that this was a Horror flick I probably would have just assumed it was a Drama depicting live in Iran during a hard time.

So as the story progresses the horror elements are introduced, Shideh's daughter starts having trouble sleeping because she is afraid of Djinn (Demons). Some paranormal things start happening around the house and eventually things do get a little creepy. This part of the movie started to drag a bit a bit on the tension died down a bit for me. There are some scares that were well done and caught me off guard, however a few were too obvious and came off a bit too cheesy. Overall the second half is good but parts of it just felt like a run of the mill ghost movie. Plus the last fifteen minutes or so kind of fell flat on me, I felt like that was suppose to be a big tense scene but I just wasn't feeling it.

I enjoyed "Under The Shadow", it has it's flaws but it does enough right to make it a worthwhile experience. If you are interested in watching a decent ghost movie that has very interesting setting then this one if worth a watch, it doesn't do anything mind blowing but it does a good enough job at being an effective horror film.

This film is very notable to me for being the first – that I am aware of – horror film to come out of a Middle Eastern Islamic country. For this reason alone, Under the Shadow is an interesting movie. Horror films generally work best when there is a sense of mystery to proceedings, the unknown being one of the scariest things there is. This was the reason that the J-Horror films from Japan were so terrifying to western audiences, as the Japanese conception of the supernatural was so different to ours meaning that things happened in those films that were highly unpredictable and unsettling. It's this same reason that a horror film from an Iranian cultural perspective is always going to feel more original in approach. And so it proves, as while there are familiar elements in this ghost story, there are also aspects that are less predictable, resulting in a fascinating movie. A woman and her young child live alone in an apartment in Tehran during the latter years of the Iran-Iraq War when the Iraqi regime were systematically firing missiles into the middle of large populated urban areas. Before long the bombs come crashing around them and just as this starts happening a strange malevolent supernatural force enters their home and begins to terrorise them also.

One of the things that made this one really stand out for me was the historical setting and social context that came with that. While on the one hand this is a claustrophobic apartment-based horror film, there are also very real terrors outside the home too. In fact, the apartment is a haven for the mother in many ways, a place where she does not have to wear restrictive clothing and can work-out to her Jane Fonda video. Beyond this safe sanctuary she has to deal with a repressive regime who may violently punish her if her clothing is not correct or if they even hear she owns a VCR. The restrictive lives of women during the Cultural Revolution is the real life horror that the protagonist experiences out with the home, while the supernatural Djinn entity is the horror she and her daughter endure within the home. At the same time there are the horrors of war constantly occurring without warning and with potential deadly consequences. Even though this film is set in the late 80's, it's quite clear that this latter factor remains horribly pertinent today, given the horrendous bombings of civilians in the Syrian Civil War which continue unabated as I write this. So, this is a movie with quite a lot going on when you think about it. The supernatural horror material escalates as the story progresses and there are some genuine jump moments and some nicely sinister imagery. It never overplays its hand though and does not descend into over-the-top shenanigans, which ultimately is to the film's overall benefit.

Lastly, and certainly not least there are a couple of excellent performances in here underpinning everything. Narges Rashidi is extremely compelling as the mother, while Avin Manshadi puts in a very strong performance as her young daughter. We really do care about these two sympathetic and realistic characters. In the final analysis, I certainly hope that this film leads to a cycle of Iranian horror films, as the horror genre is often a very good one when it comes to examining tough social issues in an accessible way. This film may be the tip of the iceberg.

"Under the Shadow" was such a wonderful surprise for me. I had already read some reviews and everybody was speechless about it. I didn't really expect something THAT good when I started watching it.

The film takes place in Iran somewhere in the 80's when the Iran-Iraq war was on. Shideh and Dorsa, a mother and a daughter, find themselves "abandoned and unprotected" after the father has to leave in order to give his services as a doctor in the war zone. This is when they start realizing that something evil haunts them in their apartment, and there is not much they can do to escape since it's dangerous to leave their home.

Many compare it to 2014's "Babadook". I can see why but at the same time I don't see so many relations to each other. The only thing that I know is that there were moments that I seriously considered turning the lights on for a while... Sometimes the graphics were not that great, definitely not disappointing but seriously, I didn't mind at all. Narges Rashidi's acting is a huge plus for the movie as long as the direction.

Scary, touching, simple though powerful, "Under the Shadow" is a pleasant surprise not only for the horror genre but for cinema in general.