It’s not hyperbole to suggest that 2016 has been a banner year for horror films (Bloody Disgusting has said this a few times) and the Toronto After Dark film festival includes a strong contender for the best horror film of the year.

Under the Shadow is an Iranian horror film set in the late 1980s. The opening text provides context about the state of the country, specifically Tehran (where the film is set) which is on the verge of being bombed by Iraq. Our protagonist Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is introduced attempting to gain re-entry to medical school, but her political activism has left her blacklisted. Dejected, she returns home to her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) and strong-willed daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi), hiding her medical textbook in a locked drawer and unhappily resigning herself to domestic duties. Things change, however, when Iraj is drafted to serve in the war, leaving Shideh to look after Dorsa by herself. Following an unexpected dud missile landing in the unit above, the danger from the world outside and within the apartment building intensifies.

Writer / director Babak Anvari’s first feature film is incredibly confident and measured. He’s crafted a universal story about a mother out of her depth who is determined to protect her child from danger, but by grounding Under the Shadow in a specific historical time period and location he has introduced an additional layer of meaning and nuance. The war is always present (sirens blare, a bomb shelter in the basement is used and the dud missile leaves a threatening crack in Shideh’s living room ceiling) but unfamiliarity with the specifics doesn’t impair the viewing experience. The constant, pervasive threat of danger is doubled by a supernatural ghost-like spectre that latches on to Dorsa – at least that’s what Shideh’s daughter and superstitious neighbour believe. Shideh has a sleepwalking problem, but Anvari never tries to convince us that she’s hallucinating when she sees strange figures in the night or discovers that objects have been misplaced or go missing from the apartment.

The most valuable of these missing items is Dorsa’s equivalent of a security blanket: a doll named Kimia. Mrs Ebrahimi, the neighbour, speaks of the legend of the Djinn, spirits who ride the wind and use personal items to track and haunt their victims. It is clear that Kimia is one such object and the doll’s disappearance ultimately becomes the plot device used to rationalization why Shideh and Dorsa remain in the apartment long after the other residents have fled for safety.

One of Under the Shadow’s most unique features is the construction of the mother / daughter relationship. Unlike so many horror heroines who find themselves in mildly paranoid, possibly hallucinatory situations with young charges (The Others, The Babadook), Shideh is not a prototypical caring and sympathetic mother. It’s clear that she loves her daughter, but she also clearly harbours resentment towards her family that she has been forced to abandon her dream of becoming a doctor. Before Iraj leaves, there’s explicit tension about the gender roles in their relationship (he blames her activism for her woes, while she bristles under the patriarchal restrictions imposed on her as a woman). The feminist critique fuses with the film’s horror elements in one standout scene: Shideh startles awake one night and sees an old man lurking in her doorway. She chases him, only to watch him disappear through the slit in the ceiling. Shocked and terrified, Shideh makes the logical decision to grab Dorsa and run into the street for help. There she is confronted by a group of neighbourhood men, taken to the police station and given a warning for appearing in public without her headscarf. Eventually she is told to return home in shame; meanwhile the events that prompted this cultural faux pas are never even spoken of or addressed.

Anvari’s script cleverly ties these kinds of events and observations without being heavy handed, and in the process he crafts a realistic foundation for his supernatural story. Unlike The Babadook, Shideh’s haunting isn’t a metaphor for being ill-equipped for the duties of motherhood, but rather an additional avenue by which to explore the insecurities and instability of life during times of war. Even Anvari’s camerawork – restlessly moving, rarely stationary – suggests listlessness, dread and destabilization. The very experience of watching Under the Shadow simulates this discomfort and, when the world (and the rules that govern it) begins to unravel in the film’s final act, the result is terrifying.

Under the Shadow screened at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.