Under the Shadow Movie Review
Under the Shadow is a horror movie from Iranian-born director and writer Babak Anvari. The entire movie is in Persian, but if you love horror movies you already know that there is a limit to how many American horror movies you can watch. The movie is set during the war between Iran and Iraq when Iraq started booming Tehran and after the revolution . In this environment a mother and her daughter are faced with a new evil that comes with the missiles and the fear. They must face this fear alone as the father has been drafted to the army.
The set up for this movie is great. At first it's hard to know what's more scary, the war, the religious regime, or the supernatural threat. Also it's really nice to see a new kind of threat on screen, if you think you've seen it all, this is surly a movie to check out.
The characters are compelling, even though it still suffers a bit from the syndrome of why are they acting like that. The mother, Shideh (Narges Rashidi), not only has to deal with the war, but also with a great deal of personal problems. Her husband, before going to the war, tries to be supportive, but it doesn't come out like support. So Shideh decides to stay in Tehran with her daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). As the war around them intensifies Shideh slowly realizes that missiles might not be her biggest problem.
Even though the movie is rather short, only 84 minutes, it takes time to build up. The atmosphere, the characters, the environment, the post revulsion way of life, it all builds very slowly and at first it will feel more like a really good drama movie. But make no mistake, it's still a horror movie, and when the horror starts I found it to be very refreshing and scary. Sure, there are some jumps scares, but there are also a lot of scary and unpredictable moments in the movie.
If you're a horror fan, you should definitely check it out.
I give it 8.5/10
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Interesting selection. I will look for it.
Cool. If you'll get to watch it, let me know what you think of it.