Iran / United Kingdom | Horror, Thriller | 30 September 2016 | Directed by Babak Anvari | Starring: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi
What could be more terrifying than residing in an apartment in post-revolutionary Tehran, where the risk of being possessed by a demonic spirit is as likely as being hit by a bomb? Babak Anvari decided to double-up on the terror for his directorial debut Under the Shadow by skilfully mixing haunted house horror with war-time drama, placing his events in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The conflict included a series of air raids and artillery attacks on major Iranian cities initiated by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Force with the purpose of destroying the morale of the revolting Iranians – and we find our characters right in the middle of the chaos.
The result is a horror film with heft, where the characters struggle under the domineering shadows of war and systemic oppression, as well as fighting off an unwelcome ghost. Anvari portrays the realities of what innocent inhabitants of war-torn Middle Eastern cities go through, whilst the inclusion of fantastical horror elements amplifys the themes of perpetual dread, inescapable confinement and diminishing hope. Anvari also provides an entertaining ride for any cinema-goers that enjoy being scared out of their skin.
We open with our main protagonist, Shideh, an aspiring female doctor who is particularly dispirited after being denied the right to resume her medical studies, owning to her past political activism, and her unhelpful doctor husband, can’t bring himself to understand his wife’s aspiration to forge a career for herself. When the news is revealed that the husband will be drafted and sent to the frontlines by the army, he promises Shideh and daughter Dorsa that everything will be fine and he will return to them unharmed; but as the audience we’re ironically thinking that he’s probably better off going to war than staying in this doomed apartment block.
So right from the get-go, we have been introduced to a set of circumstances and characters that are completely believable and engaging. Before any supernatural intervention, there is already a ‘bad feeling’ in this environment. The characters are at odds with their surroundings, they are angry and frightened, and these slow-building negativities and tensions will only grow as the events unfold – both literal and supernatural.
Of course, after the husband departs, a missile hits their apartment building and while failing to explode, a neighbour dies of a heart attack. After the strike, The young Dorsa starts to behave rather erratically and begins to resent her mother, whilst developing a strange relationship with this unknown force, which Shideh shrugs off as being another imaginary friend phase. Though she learns from a superstitious neighbour that the cursed missile might have brought with it Djinn – malevolent Middle-Eastern spirits that travel on the wind.
Audiences have certainly grown used to the creepy child cliché over the years with films whether they have been actively possessed (Poltergeist, The Exorcist) or just truly evil (The Omen, Village of the Damned, Orphan) but that doesn’t make Under the Shadow any less terrifying. The film creates an interesting dynamic between the family and demonic spirit and the latter exerts its influence much more subtly than straight-up possession.
The film and the spirit know that Dorsa is the perfect target for manipulation, but as the ominous tension rises even Shideh begins to doubt what is real and what is not, and she doesn’t know whether to believe she is being deceived by a poltergeist or simply losing her mind. Seeing as the audience witnesses the events largely from her perspective, we are then left with no characters that we can fully rely on to get us out of this nightmarish situation.
As the threat of air-strike also increases, and more families begin to leave the apartment block to escape the war-torn city, the stubborn Shideh refuses to leave her home, which makes her and Dorsa even more isolated and helpless. The main problem for the characters and the audience is that the supernatural force has no defining characteristics – it both possesses and impersonates, influences dreams and reality, presents itself in any form, and can strike at any moment – so there’s no point letting out a sigh of relief every time the sun rises! Anvari plays on the imaginary fears and anxieties that we have all have had in darks rooms or slightly ominous places; seeing things and hearing creeks and bumps in the night. The haunting is perpetual, the suspense is genuine and the jump scares are well thought out and deserved.
Our female protagonists are not only dealing with the perpetual unease and domineering pressures of supernatural forces and literal bombings in Under the Shadow, but we are shown how Shideh, specifically, has to combat the general oppressiveness of a blatantly sexist society. At the beginning of the film, we see that both the patriarchal medical system and even Shideh’s husband present obstacles that prevent her from reaching her aspirations. Even when Shideh decides to take Dorsa and finally escape the haunted apartment, she is arrested for simply going outdoors without her chador. Amongst the extraordinary supernatural events, this moment is particularly hard-hitting, and it takes unsettling sights like this for the audience to learn that not only in this situation, but in general life, Shideh is confined, alone, and victimised by her society and can only have faith in her own determination and wit to succeed and survive.
Anvari delivers a horror adventure that will satisfy audiences that just want to be chilled and spooked and those that want a cleverly crafted story on top of that, with compelling characters and a thought-provoking social subtext ever present. In truth, I didn’t know that was what I wanted from this film, but it hindsight, it was completely refreshing to experience a horror film that had more than just scares. You come out of the cinema with more to think and talk about besides which bits made you jump. You find yourself being more frightened for your protagonists during those tense moments because you are invested in them and their stories, and not ready to laugh at the predictable fate of a disposable underwritten character. You don’t need millions of dollars and big monsters to make hair stand on end, just a well-thought out idea and an intelligent director at the helm and there you have it – a beautifully slow-burning horror grounded in an even more terrifying reality.
Jimminy Critic 