Djinn (2013) - Aladdin meets Rosemary's Baby

Synopsis:

An Emirati couple return home from a trip and discover that their new apartment has been built on a site that is home to some malevolent beings.

My thoughts:

 Have you had enough of freaky kid / possession tropes? Rest assured. Djinn (2013) is not your garden variety possession/exorcism movie. You don't need extensive knowledge of Islamic theology or folklore to appreciate this underrated horror piece. It explores such universal afflictions as postpartum depression, infant loss, grief, guilt and hallucinations. Salama is an educated, fairly westernized Emirati woman dealt one of the worst imaginable blows - her son's death due to SIDS. Reluctantly, she agrees to move to her native country after her husband Khalid gets a job offer. The move proves to be neither a fresh start nor homecoming. It's a trip into a dark parallel dimension. Stuck in a sinister luxurious apartment complex, she finds herself stripped of her identity and any optimistic vision for the future.   

The downside is the cartoonish approach to the hallucination sequence. The visuals and the special effects could have been subtler in some places (footprints on the ceiling, the sinister female form shrouded in black). Sometimes less is more. The luxurious high rise in the middle of nowhere, shrouded in fog, is sinister by itself.