I don't usually let the accolades in the trailer sway me because anyone can say anything about anything. For instance, the worst movie ever made — Going the Distance with Justin Long and Drew Barrymore – could have had a trailer quoting some unknown critic saying, “A cinematic wonder! Incredible! But keep in mind, I've time travelled from the far past and have never seen a movie before!”
So yeah, there were a lot of captions telling me I'm going to like Under the Shadow. Those captions don't sway me, those critics could all be leprechauns, just making stuff up about rainbows and foreign movies.
But it's not every day I come across a ghost story set in 1988 Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. So I did some Internet researching (a.k.a. Googling) and everything I read reinforced my interest. It's the debut of Iranian-born filmmaker Babak Anvari. He grew up in Iran but learned the film trade in London. This is not an Iranian movie. It's a UK production. Anavri was pressured to shoot it in English but he pushed for the authenticity of Farsi. The film is clearly better for it. Also, the lead actress, Narges Rashidi launched her career in Germany and is LA-based. This is truly an international affair.
What's resulted is a unique movie that created a lot of buzz. Now all it has do is deliver the goods. If it's as scary as it looks, I'm in.