Under the Shadow (2016)
-Watched at Sundance Film Festival-
Well holy shit, that sure was a thriller. Being in a dark theatre at Sundance was the perfect place to watch this. The audiences at Sundance are willing to engage in a film more than your average date night popcorn-munchers. If a film is great, they clap whether or not the filmmaker is there. If a film is funny, they’re in an uproar of giggle fits. In the case of Under the Shadow, it was thrilling (ha) to have a whole theatre scream and jump around you. There was one girl in the theatre who kept screaming bloody murder (house front left I’m looking at you). After the film was over, I felt like she owed it to us all to “out” herself, but alas, the screamer remains anonymous.
The film itself was pretty well-made. They had some solid use of camera movements to match character and environment movements which were pretty cool to look at, and really helped to suck you in. The dialogue was a little bit in-your-face at times, but it was easy enough to forget once the film really got going. The horror aspects of the film were perfect. I haven’t seen a film like this in a while, and it was so fun. I felt like I was in a straight up haunted house.
For me, this was the perfect movie-going experience. I love feeling like I’ve gone through something with the rest of the people in the theatre. We were all collectively smiling and jumpy as we exited into the dark and snowy night. As if the film hadn’t scared me enough, as I laid in bed sleeping last night in Park City, there were avalanche cannons going off on the mountain right next to me. In my half-dream state, I thought I was getting bombed in the Iran-Iraq War and was just waiting for the Djinn to get me. What I’m trying to say is, this film will stick with you and you’ll have a helluva time watching it.