Reviews

I don't often review movies on IMDb but the current top review here seemed so unfair to me, I had to bring my own point of view.

Let's start by what this movie is not: it's not gory or fast paced. If you're looking for a Halloween pop corn movie to watch with friends, this is not that. If you're expecting supporting characters to drop dead every fifteen minutes, this is not that. Judging the film on those basis is ridiculous and unfair, it is not trying to be Conjuring III.

What it is, is a genuine drama about the horrors of being a woman trying to care for her daughter in a society that has no respect for her.

The movie takes place in Teheran in the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war. The Islamic Revolution has changed Iranian culture forever; women cannot leave the house without veiling themselves ("Do you think this is Switzerland?" asks a soldier) and our lead is forbidden to finish her medical studies for having been part of a left-wing group during the cultural revolution.

After an Iraqi missile hits her home, her daughter and neighbor start telling tales of Djinns, Middle Eastern creatures that haunt the living and steal what is most precious to you so they can track you everywhere you go.

This paragraph might be considered a spoiler. Of course, the djinn is only a metaphor for what society puts this woman through. The djinn steals her anatomy book offered by her (now dead) mother on her first day of medical school -- the school she can no longer attend to because she had the nerves of holding a political opinion.

Under The Shadow is not interested in creative kills and disturbing imagery. What it is trying to do - and succeeds at wonderfully, is using the horror genre for what it does best: illustrate the less fantastical but just as terrifying real horrors of our world.

If you're looking for a movie that understands that horror is rooted in characters and is willing to let the tension slowly build then Under The Shadow is definitely the movie for you. Highly recommended.

God exists. He lives in Brussels, and he's kind of an a*shole. He spends his days in his office, inventing laws that will spoil people's lives. Until one day, his daughter Ea releases the decease dates to everyone and escapes their flat to join the real world. The first act of this movie shows great premise. Van Dormael's surrealist style gives you the joy to watch giraffes in the streets of Brussels and chickens watching movies. All of it works. Benoit Poelvorde is hilarious as a bitter, mean old man. Then Ea escapes the apartment and everything goes wrong. After releasing the decease dates, Ea is out to write a 'Brand New Testament' and has to find six apostles for some reasons. The story goes nowhere. Ea just picks six random people to be her apostles, and meets each one of them, one after another, telling them the same story about her mean dad and her brand new testament. It gets redundant after three apostles, tiring after four, and insufferable after six. The movie has countless whimsical, beautiful scenes, but they're empty. Each characters feels like an excuse for Van Dormael to shoehorn a couple quotes and more surrealist images. None of those characters feels real for a second. It's slow and dreadfully paced. You just spend the second act begging Benoit Poelvoord to come back until he finally hears your plea shortly before the end of the movie.