Tehran, 1988: the Iran-Iraq war rages on. Shideh (Narges Rashidi), expelled from medical school for protesting during the revolution, is once again refused re-entry. Her husband (now a doctor about to leave for service at the front) thinks it might be for the best. Shideh works out her anger to a forbidden Jane Fonda VHS, and refuses to take their daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) to the country for safety-a decision undermined almost immediately by a bomb strike on their building. Meanwhile, Dorsa's beloved doll goes missing, she contracts a violent fever, and the orphan boy adopted by the landlord has convinced her the house is haunted by a djinn. Then all hell lets loose.

Morphing effortlessly from realism into horror, Babak Anvari's debut works on multiple levels: straight up scary, political allegory and firmly feminist fable. With echoes of The Babadook, Poltergeist and more than a little Repulsion, Britain's Foreign-Language Oscar® nomination is up there with the best movies of 2016-if you can handle it.