Under The Shadow (2016) – Review.
As Halloween is approaching and, as the autumnal season falls upon us, it is inevitable that horror films once again become the genre that everyone is talking about. It is a time when the fantastic is not of the jolly jingle bells variety, at least not yet, nor the epicness of the summer blockbuster season. Halloween is a celebration of those things that scare us. It’s a very cathartic time of the year when we stare fear in the eyes and say, with our hair standing up at the back of our necks and our palms sweaty, ‘Bring it on.’
There are many types of horror but it has always been my contention that a good horror film has to be about something. There should be a theme, a discussion going on with the horror acting as an extension. The fear, the terror, the reactions, should emerge from something tangible, something real.
Yes, there is a certain attraction to mindless horror but I never feel these films last. As a teenager some friends and I once watched all the Friday The 13th films in one summer, each of us trying to predict beforehand how many unlucky victims will be dispatched (if I remember correctly Jason Takes Manhattan holds the record). This was fun, not because the films were any good (they weren’t) but because of the social aspect. We laughed throughout enjoying the naffness of the films and sharing the joke. 
Similarly I watched some of the Final Destination films a few years ago. The attraction there of course, is the increasingly ridiculous ways another group of victims are dispatched. Ask me today and I’ll admit I can’t remember exactly what happened or who was who because the pleasure was completely ephemeral. Compare these with the best horrors – The Exorcist, The Innocents, The Devil’s Backbone or the 2014 Australian film The Babadook. These are all genuinely scary films with memorable highlights, great characters, and, crucially, very strong and relatable themes.
The Exorcist – probably my all-time favourite horror – had two thematic motifs. The first focused on the struggles of a successful actress coping with single-parenthood and a high profile career; the second concerned a priest suffering a crisis of faith, intensified by the death of his mother who regains his faith and discovers proof of God when he is confronted with the most diabolical evil. The first theme, the strained relationship between a mother and daughter, is a common one in horror. The Babadook explored a mother’s attempt to bring up a very troubled child and we ask whether the creature who terrorises them is real or just a figment of a strung out and exhausted mind. In The Innocents Deborah Kerr plays a surrogate mother coming up against a history which just won’t let go of the present. 
It is a theme which is also explored in the 2016 British film Under The Shadow. It opens up with Shideh, an Iranian woman who dreams of becoming a doctor but is told by the authorities that the dream will never come true because she had once been politically active in college. She struggles to reassert her femininity and her personality in a country that doesn’t value women and she is married to a man who has achieved exactly what she dreams of. The film is set during the Iran/Iraq war and soon her husband, Iraj, is called to serve close to the front line. He implores Shideh to leave Tehran because the Iraqis have promised to bomb the city but of course, Shideh refuses.
This is the theme of Under The Shadow – a woman, constrained by politics, gender and convention who is struggling to be independent. She wants to succeed on her own so much, to look after her home and provide for her daughter, Dorsa, that leaving is not an option.
Of course, once she’s alone the bombs do fall, ripping a hole in the building’s roof, damaging her neighbour’s home upstairs and cracking her ceiling. It is the moment that her terror becomes real.
There is an Iranian superstition that suggest that ‘When bad things happen and a wind blows’ a Djinn may come into your life. The Djinn, a malevolent spirit, focuses on Shideh and Dorsa, attacking them where Shideh is most vulnerable and undermining the very things that the mother holds most dear – her independent spirit and her ability to look after her home and child.
Under the Shadow has a good share of scares, it can be creepy, tense and there was one moment which actually made me jump but it does this not by manipulating the viewer with loud music and putting its protagonists in preposterous situations, but by making us really care for the characters. Despite Shideh’s reactions and insistence on being in control when she clearly isn’t, we do not judge her. Instead we sympathise with her. 
What makes the film special though is that it affords us a glimpse into the everyday lives of Iranian people. Yes the start seems to follow the usual path of government control, but this is a McGuffin of sorts. As soon as Shideh gets home we see how ordinary and universal family life is. She is an ordinary house-wife, looking after her daughter, sharing her dreams and her frustrations with her husband. We could easily believe there is no difference between Iran and Europe but occasionally, we are shown just how fragile this façade is. The fear of letting anyone know they own a VCR, the fact that, anytime someone knocks the door Shideh has to put her head scarf on. One standout scene is when mother and daughter flee the spirit in the house only for Shideh to be arrested for not wearing a headscarf. The Djinn, of course, is the embodiment of the flimsiness of the façade.
Under The Shadow is an interesting mixture of a film – a British Production, set in Iran, filmed in Jordan and in the Farsi Language. It was the UK submission for Best Foreign Language film at last year’s Oscars and although it didn’t get nominated, it is still an excellent addition to the Horror genre. It is directed by first-timer Babak Anvari who, if he is able to find a career in film-making, is certainly a name I would look out for in the future.
If you’re looking for an effective horror this Halloween, one that has the requisite creeps and scares, but also one that expands our world view without ever being preachy, Under The Shadow is the perfect movie. It is not a well-known film and, although critically acclaimed, it seems to have been missed by the wider public but very much deserves to be seen.
Film ‘89 Verdict – 8/10
