10 Great Cliffhanger Endings From Recent Horror Movies

6. Is The Djinn Still In Pursuit? - Under The Shadow

Writer/director Babak Anvari’s Under The Shadow is one of the best and most unnerving indie chillers in recent years, skilfully combining psychological horror with well-paced jump-scare moments.

The film follows medical student Shideh (Narges Rashidi), who lives in war-torn 1980s Tehran with her young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). After an unexploded missile strikes their building, Dorsa becomes disturbed and convinced they are being haunted by an evil spirit - a Djinn - which Shideh is warned can latch on and pursue people by stealing an item that is precious to them.

Dorsa’s assertion soon proves all too real and after her doll Kimia disappears, she and her mother are tormented by this malevolent presence, which appears as a chador-wearing apparition and attacks the pair.

At the end of the film, Shideh and Dorsa manage to escape the apparition in the car and flee to her husband’s parents’ home. The final “oh no” moment comes as the film closes and we realise Kimia’s detached head and a medical textbook gifted to Shideh by her late mother are still in the house, an ominous suggestion that the malevolent force may still be in hot pursuit.