Under the Shadow

In western culture movies become iconic quickly. For example, entire generations who missed the original Star Wars film can nonetheless recite dialog from it. Horrow films fit the same mold. The tropes, tricks, plot arcs and even to a large degree the SFX become familiar over time because they are part of the overall experience you expect.

But what happens when a horror fan experiences a film from a different culture? Are the building blocks the same ... or different? One of the clearest exponents of this issue is this film, a modern "horror" film produced in an Islamic country that is known neither for its horror films nor really for its interest in films at all.

Which is what makes UNDER THE SHADOW SO REMARKABLE.

It is good enough to stand on its own as a horror piece. In fact, it's only possible failing -- that it builds so slowly and gradually -- can in fact be considered a major strength. It may well be that, in the west, film-makers who lack the skill to "layer" their suspense raise the temperature far too quickly? However when you consider the obvious incorporation of allegory and metaphor to overlay the plight of the heroine in her real life against her plight in the supernatural realm .. the film gets even more intriguing. Not preachy. Just interesting.

Recommended.

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.

This is a film about war and its atrocities. The primary goal of the film is obviously not to be a horror film.

During the Iran-Iraq war and especially after Saddam's missiles landed in many parts of Iran, many were affected psychologically. Children who started screaming, adults with PTSD, depression and many many more psychological problems. Imagine fearing any moment that a bomb or a missile could land in your home. It's a hundred times scarier than any supernatural phenomena.

The background of the film is Tehran, Iran in the 80s during the war. The supernatural elements (whether imagined by the main character or supposed to be real) beautifully symbolize the ugliness and squalor of war.

If you are looking to be entertained by a purely horror film, this may not be the best choice, as there is more to it. You may be disappointed as you may tune out of anything non-horror and the rest of the film will seem tedious to watch. However, if you do not expect to be scared the entire time, and just watch it as a film about a family during the war, I guarantee that you will smile, cry and be crept out of your wits a few times. Even though I was paying more attention to the story line rather than waiting to be scared, I had a hard time walking upstairs alone to my bedroom after watching this. I am a horror film fan and I am not easily scared anymore, but I had not been so terrified in years.

I give it a nine because the resolution at the end is not complete. I usually like closure at the end of the film, but again, that could mean that until the war is over, evil has not gone away.

I had been following the recent festival news regarding "Under the Shadow", and shortly after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival it was promptly acquired by Netflix.

The fact that Netflix snagged it right away from other major distributors should be a real indicator of how much of a winner this movie really is.

Most people will dismiss "Under the Shadow" right away after seeing the PG-13 rating. Don't. Give it a chance, and you won't regret it. This movie doesn't rely on cheap jump scares. The way the movie is paced, it actually lets the tension and intensity accumulate, little by little, and the scares that it delivers, although few in number, are guaranteed to leave a mark.

In one particular instance, everyone in the room screamed and almost jumped out of their seats, and I do mean *everyone*, and that goes to show how well the movie does in pulling everyone in.

Even though the story is set in the 1980s, a lot of themes are, coincidentally, a big deal nowadays, such as the usage of the veil by women, and how they're actually perceived/treated as inferior to and by men, when in reality they happen to be extremely strong characters on their own, driven by what they want to do and what they want to be, and not by what others expect of them.

The Djinn, the so-called "monster" in this movie, is nothing short of amazing given the story and the context, and he's not something you're likely to forget any time soon. I will, however, do the same thing that other reviewers and critics have done before me, and I won't say anything further on this "entity", besides the fact that it's an extremely refreshing, new and interesting concept for the whole "monster movie". Go see the movie, and hopefully you'll not only be surprised and amazed, but also equally terrified.

Narges Rashidi, who plays the mother (Shideh), has a strong and gripping role, but in my humble opinion it was actually Avin Manshadi who plays her daughter, Dorsa, the one who stole the show.

In general, people think of kids (in horror movies) as annoying, and all-around bad actors who just don't have it in them to actually act the part in what's supposed to be a scary, horrifying film. In a nutshell, Avin Manshadi blew me away. The way she delivered her lines, how she acted, the very different ways she looked at her mother given the context, how she looked at her surroundings, and the fact that her gaze also never looked at the "camera" or anything of the sort, that certainly elevated the movie to something else entirely.

It made the whole thing *actually* believable, which isn't always the case when you have a kid as a main protagonist. For an underage kid, and for her first role in anything EVER (according to IMDb), I can't begin to tell you how extremely HUGE her performance actually is.

In short, this movie has very strong performances, a believable dilemma set in a very real period of our history, and a plot that doesn't leave you hanging with even more questions by the end or a twist-ending, like how many/most films usually do nowadays.

Babak Anvari (Director) is definitely on my list of people to keep an eye out for, especially when you consider that this was his first feature film. Extremely impressive, and there's no doubt in my mind that this young director has a lot to offer to the world of filmmaking in general, although I'd very much like to see him tackle some more horror projects.

If you want to see a horror movie riddled with cheap jump scares that provide easy chuckles and giggles, this movie is not for you.

If you want to see a horror movie with lots of deaths, blood and violence, this movie is definitely not for you.

If, however, you are a true fan of the genre and are looking for something new, if you can actually look past the language barrier and want to see an actual plot that gradually evolves in a slow-burn kind of way (as opposed to watching the kind of horror movies where you can just "turn your brain off" and enjoy the mindless fun without giving it a second thought), then you should give this movie a chance, by all means.

If possible, you should watch this in theaters to really get the "experience", otherwise watching it at home won't probably pack the same kind of punch, but I guess everyone is different in that aspect. Just be sure to actually invest all of your senses when watching it!

Like I said, don't go expecting a gore-filled horror fest. This is a movie that actually aims to do justice to the Horror genre and the scares it delivers... and boy, do they!

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.