Under the Shadow review: Iranian chiller builds tension but the djinn is a let down

Leila Farzad in Under the Shadow - (Marc Brenner)

Tension slowly builds for much of this adaptation of Babak Anvari’s BAFTA-winning 2016 film, where a mother and young daughter are haunted by a demonic djinn in a bombarded Tehran, toward the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Arguably, it builds a little too slowly.

On the plus side it’s good to be reminded that ordinary and extraordinary lives go on within an embattled, oppressed civilisation that a certain lunatic recently threatened with obliteration. And this is an atmospheric, technically impressive staging that puts Leila Farzad’s (I Hate Suzie, Two Weeks in August) flair for strident impatience centre stage.