Film

Under the Shadow

A missile crashes through a Tehran apartment building during the Iran-Iraq War and doesn't quite finish exploding — and neither does the dread that follows. Babak Anvari's debut fuses haunted-house horror with the real terror of living under bombardment and under a regime policing women's bodies. Tense and slow-building, it's for anyone who wants scares laced with history and rage.

TMDb rating6.5

If you liked this

The Babadook2014

The gold standard for horror that treats a mother's exhaustion and fear as the monster itself — Essie Davis is devastating, and the film never lets you decide if the threat is supernatural or psychological.

But If you want your ghosts to stay ghosts rather than metaphors, the ambiguity might frustrate you.

The Babadook poster

Hereditary2018

Ari Aster's slow-motion collapse of a family is one of the most purely dreadful things modern horror has produced, building from grief into full supernatural nightmare with total conviction.

But It's punishing and bleak — there's little relief, and the ending goes somewhere extreme.

Hereditary poster

Rosemary's Baby1968

The original woman-alone-against-an-unbelieving-world horror film — Mia Farrow's paranoia feels exactly like Shideh's, decades before Anvari made the parallel explicit again.

But Its pace is 1968-slow, and some of the gender politics now read as period pieces rather than critique.

Rosemary's Baby poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Persepolis2007

Same country, same war, same claustrophobia of being a woman under a regime — but told as animated autobiography instead of horror, showing you the real history the djinn stands in for.

Marjane Satrapi's black-and-white animated memoir of growing up in revolutionary and wartime Iran is funny, furious and devastating — the real-world companion piece to everything Under the Shadow is really about.

But No scares at all — it's a coming-of-age story, and the animation style might feel too gentle for what it's actually depicting.

Persepolis poster
More like this (8)

The Others2001

A tightly wound haunted-house film about a mother protecting her children inside a house full of secrets, with the same suffocating light-and-shadow dread.

But Its twist is now widely known, which blunts some of the impact on a first watch.

The Others poster

Goodnight Mommy2015no page yet

An Austrian mother-and-children horror that turns domestic intimacy into something unbearable, sharing the same interest in whether the threat is inside the house or inside the family.

But Cold and clinical where Under the Shadow is warm underneath its dread — this one keeps you at arm's length.

The Orphanage2007

Guillermo del Toro-produced Spanish ghost story about a mother searching for her missing son, gorgeous and heartbreaking rather than purely scary.

But It's more melodrama than horror by the end — go in expecting tears as much as scares.

The Orphanage poster

It Follows2015

A masterclass in dread that never lets up, using an unstoppable, ambiguous threat as a metaphor the way Under the Shadow uses its djinn.

But The metaphor here is about sex and youth rather than war and womanhood — different territory entirely.

It Follows poster

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night2014no page yet

A Persian-language vampire film shot in moody black and white by Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour — proof this isn't the only great Persian horror out there.

But It's more style and atmosphere than plot or scares — patience required.

The Innocents1961

A classic of ambiguous, atmospheric haunting — a governess losing her grip in a house that may or may not be possessed, gorgeously shot.

But It's slow, black-and-white, and asks you to sit with unease rather than jump scares.

The Innocents poster

Kwaidan1965

Decades before Anvari, Kobayashi was already using ghost stories to process a nation's war trauma and buried grief — the same trick of dressing history in supernatural clothes.

A gorgeous, theatrical Japanese anthology of four ghost stories, each a meditation on memory, guilt and the dead who won't stay buried — hypnotic rather than frightening.

But Nearly three hours, in Japanese, and deliberately stagey — this rewards patience, not adrenaline.

Kwaidan poster

Turtles Can Fly2004no page yet

Same engine — children menaced by an invisible, arbitrary war — but with the supernatural stripped away entirely, so you feel exactly what the djinn was standing in for all along.

A heartbreaking Kurdish-Iraqi film about children living amid landmines and looming invasion, made by people who actually lived it — the horror here needs no ghosts.

But It's genuinely devastating rather than entertaining, with no genre pleasures to soften the blow — go in prepared.

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by