Under the Shadow (2016)

After reading some positive reviews on "Under the Shadow", I decided to check it out for myself and, while in no way would I call it a BAD film by any means, it pretty much hit me as a Iranian version of "The Babadook". It's definitely better than that over-rated flick, but along the same lines from what I saw.

In war-torn 1980s Iran, a mother has to watch after her daughter on her own when her husband is drafted. After a scud-missile crashes through the apartment above theirs, her daughter's cherished doll goes missing which leads into more troubling apparitions coming through a crack in the ceiling to terrorize them - all on top of war devastation they have to dodge...

The setting for this film was definitely its strong point; the supernatural material akin to the combat zone of Tehran made for a pretty original and interesting back-drop for this type of film. That said, I didn't find all that much original going on with the general premise, which was pretty much your standard, slow-burn supernatural horror flick. Again, that's not to say I hated "Under the Shadow". There's a few somewhat 'creepy' moments and some possible subtext paralleled with the Iranian culture I thought I detected in a few spots, but overall, I wasn't blow away. If you're into ghost-movies you may dig this more.