Under The Shadow

What do you do when the people outside are worse than the horror inside the house?




An interesting and unsettling first feature that I appreciate for the willingness to tell a tight story that uses it's time and setting well, that of Tehran in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war as the religious police are cracking down on women there. In the middle of that, a former medical student, Shideh, is left alone with her child in a rapidly-emptying apartment building as her husband is sent to the front lines and her neighbors start to flee the city as missiles rain down.

And then, the spirits start showing up.

Smartly, Shideh doesn't wait for very long after seeing figures in the night and a floating chador to flee the apartment with her child.  Unfortunately, she does it with her head uncovered and is picked up by the religious police, admonished severely and sent right back home.  It's a great scene that really underlines just how bad her situation is and how there's not exactly respite in fleeing the ghosts with the madness outside her door.

Very appealing main character, played by Narges Rashidi and from first-time director Babak Anvari, who doesn't try to reinvent horror films and instead uses the uncertainty of the time and the situation to heighten the tension. I'll definitely be looking out for more of his work in the future.


2016 - Written and directed by Babak Anvari.  Starring Narges Rashidi.