Under The Shadows (2015) Is A Slow Yet Satisfying Piece of Horror Cinema

A mother must protect her daughter from a dybbuk who wants to take possession of her child in 1980s Tehran, during the War of the Cities.

✰✰✰✰ out of 5 stars. A slick Iranian horror film which mixes familiar genre tropes with an effective family drama. It shares similarities with the Aussie horror hit The Babadook, though this supernatural chiller features more scares than the latter and has a more old school feel, probably due to the film's 1980s setting. Iranian-born director Babak Anvari manages to take the audiences into darker and more terrifying corners with his deft handling of the material. The two leads, Narges Rashidi as the mother, Shideh and Avin Manshadi as the daughter Dorsa, gives an outstanding performance in the film, something that is very rare in this kind of genre.

The film suffers too much exposition during it's first hour and nothing really happens for a long time which some may find a bit boring. But once it reaches it's second act, the film shoots off enough shocks and jump scares that will make you look twice in every corner of the frame of every scene and keep you in your toes, always on the look out. But the film's final acts is no doubt it's best part, which features the mother and daughter escaping from the dybbuk that has already taken over their home. 

Directed by Babak Anvari, starring Narges Rashidi and Avin Manshadi.