Director: Akshay Akkineni
Actors: Akshay Oberoi, Parvathy Omanakuttan
Wait, I thought I’d walked into a horror film, having lowered my expectations anyway. Horror, like pure comedy, whether good or bad, has an uncomplicated relationship with its audience. You go in for the laughs in the latter, and to feel frightended at least for a few seconds, every now and then, in the former. Story is secondary. Sometimes bad horror movies make you laugh, but that’s part of the fun.
This picture starts off quite slickly, with top-rate graphic storytelling for opening credits. The background score, at least for its sound design, is of high quality. The sets look well done. And there is 3D for bonus effect.
But you know what, none of this is supposed to matter. All you need to scare the pants off the audience is to make them believe that what’s happening to the characters on screen could be happening to them. God knows, movies shot like home videos have achieved that phenomenally well: The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Actvity are only two best known (relatively) recent examples. Closer home, Ram Gopal Varma’s Bhoot and his production Vaastushastra, with their setting and situations, could rock your seat.
Given how distant you feel from the two loser type main characters in this movie, and the few scenes when ghosts appear are inserted so callously into the picture, you wonder if the filmmakers were even attempting to scare you at all. There is not a moment of effective horror. There is absolutely no humour. What’s the point then?
