Under the Shadow

Under the Shadow is a 2016 internationally co-produced Persian-language supernatural horror film written and directed by Iranian-born Babak Anvari as his directorial debut. I watched it dubbed in English on Netflix during our free trial month. The Djinn are real.

trailer:

The British Film Institute says,

For this unholy brew of the domestic, the political and the irrational, Anvari’s film has been drawing ‘Farhadi meets The Babadook’ comparisons since it premiered at Sundance in early 2016. Netflix had already snapped it up even before the premiere buzz was able to anoint Under the Shadow the latest in a recent string of breakout indie horror titles.

Variety calls it

a satisfyingly tense and atmospheric thriller set in a haunted Tehran apartment during the terrifying final days of the Iran-Iraq War. Slyly merging a familiar but effective genre exercise with a grim allegory of female oppression, Babak Anvari’s resourceful writing-directing debut grounds its premise in something at once vaguely political and ineluctably sinister.

The Guardian says the film "evokes [the director's] fear-ridden childhood in Iran – and is being hailed as a horror classic." Roger Ebert's site gives it 4 out of 4 stars and says, "In a year filled with great first features, add "Under the Shadow" to the list." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics consensus score of 99%.