War is scary, but living in wartime with a demonic presence is even worse. This is the plot for Iranian director Babak Anvari’s debut full-length feature Under The Shadow, a horror film filled to the brim with dread and terror.
Under The Shadow exists during the end of the Iran/Iraq war, a harsh reality that directly affects the everyday life of people in the surrounding areas. The focus is on a family in Tehran in 1988.
Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is unable to return to school to persue her degree in medicine as her mother hoped because of her recently activity protesting the government and the war itself. She returns home to find out that her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) has to return to the army to serve his duty in the war, leaving her at home to tend to her daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) during her fragile state of mind.
The damages of war quite literally creak into their home when a missile lands on top of their house, and plagues them with a daily reminder of the current state of their country. Things get weird when Dorsa’s doll mysteriously vanishes, and soon weird things keep happening around the house. Despite Dorsa telling her mom that something isn’t right, Shideh doesn’t believe that it can possibly be the work of djinn, supernatural creatures in Islamic mythology. But as things keep getting weirder in their claustrophobic house, it becomes hard for her to deny that something isn’t right.
Anvari does resort to the sterotypical jump scare here and there, but most of the creepiness of Under The Shadow relies on a slow building sense of dread and tension, think a mix between Babadook and A Girl Walks Home At Night. There’s clearly a commentary being made of the effects of war and religion here, done tastefully under the guise of a creepy horror film.
Narges Rashidi is totally game for the role of the strong heroine, struggling to pull it all together as her life quite literally falls apart at once. The young child actress does a great job of being creepy and annoying, as it is almost required at this point in horror films. It’s a strong and steady debut from Anvari, and one of the better horror films that you will find all year.
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