83
Metascore
25 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanA quality ghost story with an unusual backdrop and great performances.
- 100CineVueMartyn ConterioCineVueMartyn ConterioUnder the Shadow is not only perfectly paced, the storytelling and plotting is emotionally gripping. The director also uses setting and location, composition and framing like a master of horror.
- 91ConsequenceMichael RoffmanConsequenceMichael RoffmanThe Iranian filmmaker wisely uses the genre to work through themes of oppression, rebellion, and femininity without ever politicizing the film. This is prestige horror, the kind with tricks and treats that arrive with purpose and linger for years.
- 90The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAnvari deftly builds and sustains tension throughout, crafting a horror movie that respects genre conventions...while firmly establishing its own distinctive identity.
- 83The Film StageJohn FinkThe Film StageJohn FinkUnder The Shadow is a rare genre film of emotional and political complexity, one that’s well-acted and directed, even if the psychological horror is front and center.
- 80Screen DailyWendy IdeScreen DailyWendy IdeThe culturally specific elements that Iran-born, British-based first time writer-director Babak Anvari brings to the picture makes this a distinctive spin on a familiar premise.
- 80VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangSlyly merging a familiar but effective genre exercise with a grim allegory of female oppression, Babak Anvari’s resourceful writing-directing debut grounds its premise in something at once vaguely political and ineluctably sinister.
- 75Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianSlant MagazineElise NakhnikianThe film's horror is spookily and movingly expressive of the tenuous position of women in 1980s Iran.