Under the Shadow (2016)

Hmm, a purportedly feminist mid-2010s horror-drama in Farsi, with a director who's part Iranian and part British, faring moderately on IMDb and extremely well on Rotten Tomatoes. I saw one of those about five years ago. But this one has a plot less like that and more like The Babadook.

Life is scary enough for anyone in Tehran during the War of the Cities in the mid-'80s. Shideh (Narges Rashidi) may have it harder than most: She can't finish her medical education thanks to her prior political involvement, her husband (Bobby Naderi) is assigned to a doctoral post in a dangerous zone, and she's left alone to take care of their maybe five-year-old daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). But the real scares come only after the dust settles from an Iraqi missile hitting their apartment building. As things make less and less sense, Shideh finds it hard to continue denying the rumor, held by Dorsa and certain neighbors, that the missile brought one or more jinni.

By and by, neighbors move somewhere safer and urge the rest to do the same. But Dorsa refuses to leave without her suspiciously absent doll, and Shideh agrees not to leave until they find it. You may think Shideh silly for giving in to her daughter's pronounced immaturity at a time like this, but there is an extra reason: When jinni take something dear to you, they hold power over you, and running away won't help.

I knew from prior readings that jinni could be very powerful, but I never found them scary until now. Here they resemble poltergeists, being seen only by whom they choose, sometimes as floating fabric. (There might be symbolism in the particular choice of clothing: Shideh is not big on Iran's new female fashion restrictions.) I'm not sure of their exact goal, but they engage in possession, try to plunge Shideh into shameful despair, and pit her and Dorsa against each other. They cause at least one fatal heart attack, possibly on purpose. Several events appear to be nightmares (making Shideh's realization all the more gradual) but may well be jinn illusions.

The U.S. rating is PG-13, and I deem it apt. This is above all a psychological horror, with remarkably little violence. I wouldn't recommend it to kids Dorsa's age, but neither am I too concerned that the experience might have warped Manshadi.

Overall, the trappings of the setting feel pretty much like window dressing. It wouldn't be hard to adapt the gist of the story to a whole other time, place, and culture, albeit with some different type of demon or spirit. That haunted-house familiarity could explain the mixed reactions, however erring on the positive side.

UtS wasn't a bad way to kick off my October viewings. Maybe it's just as well that I had to return a defective disc and turn to my streaming list.