[3] In the near future, a young Emirati couple returns to their home country and moves into a high-rise apartment in Ras al-Khaimah.

[6] With a production budget of US$5 million,[7] filming began in the United Arab Emirates in late March 2011 and took place at several locations throughout Dubai.

Image Nation's CEO Michael Garin denied these reasons and blamed the delay on meeting the Directors Guild of America's requirements.

The critic wrote, "This limp attempt at local horror takes elements from Rosemary's Baby, The Grudge, and others, thrown together into a cheesy, ham-fisted ghost story... Hooper's lack of engagement isn't helped by unimaginative f/x and leaden dialogue."

[13] Ronan Doyle at Indiewire also panned the film, "From its very first frame, expounding exposition over a shoddily-shot desert sequence, this is an unmitigated disaster of a movie, every bit as horrible as the events it attempts to portray."

Doyle concluded, "Djinn represents, in the end, a fundamental failure to capitalize on the chance for a particularly culturally-rooted new breed of horror film.

"[14] Marwa Hamad, reviewing for Gulf News, wrote that the film's use of djinns was a welcome change from traditional horror narratives.

Hamad wrote, "The gimmicky nature of the film is undeniable, relying on the jump-in-your-seat sort of shockers rather than really messing with its viewers’ psyches ...

Hamad commended the portrayal of the Westernized Arab couple, "The characters' crisis of nationality and lack of belonging underlies the entirety of the plot."

It possesses building blocks for original terror, though not the courage to double down on its DNA, opting instead to hedge bets with watered-down drama and routine frights.