By Aniruddha Basu • Aug 25th, 2008 • Filed under: Film Review, Recently Featured, featured

God save the horror genre!!, writes Aniruddha Basu after watching Ram Gopal Varma’s Phoonk

As the saying goes, its difficult to make an effective comedy. Its even more difficult to make a effective horror film. Ram Gopal Verma has certainly achieved the latter in past with spine tingling efforts like Raat and Bhoot. In Phoonk however he displays a wholly unintentional flair for the comic. And the preposterous.

Verma has gone on record saying that this would be his scariest film to date. That alas, has turned out to be not just the overstatement of the year, but in fact wholly untrue as this film could in fact end up being his funniest. Because most of the characters here behave so abnormally they appear either demented or stupid. Because most of the scares this time are either clichés, or telegraphed so extensively, that when its pay off time, one actually feels more amused than scared. And the film itself is high on atmosphere and very low on scares. There is hardly a single genuinely creepy shot here, despite Ramu’s camera exploring all the odd little toys and angles in affluent builder Rajiv’s household.

The wafer-thin plot concerns Rajiv’s (played as a short-tempered, no nonsense atheist by actor Sudeep) daughter being put under a black magic spell by two ex-business associates -a husband and his very, very unhinged wife, whom Rajiv fired unceremoniously after discovering that the duo was siphoning off money on the sly. Unfortunately for Rajiv & Co, the demented couple happen to be active practitioners of black magic and decide to extract vengeance by targeting Rajiv’s cute and bubbly daughter Raksha (Ahaas Channa)

All this happens pre-interval. And to be honest the first half is not wholly unwatchable. There are some noteworthy touches, Rajiv’s shady driver is suitably ominous and a sinister looking bronze monkey in his home highlights the irony as almost everyone in the house is a Hanuman and Ganesh devotee. Then there is a fine sequence involving (yes you guessed it) a reflection on the mirror. It’s all been done a hundred times before, still Ramu nails the scene. And then Rajiv’s little girl starts wandering off by herself and gets followed almost everywhere by a sinister looking crow.

But post-interval things proceed in only one direction-downhill. The film suddenly leaves behind all pretence at being original and becomes another tiresome Exorcist clone, when Raksha suddenly becomes possessed by an evil spirit and starts mumbling in multiple voices. Ramu even copies the famous “levitation scene” from the 1973 classic. And with the arrival of a psychiatrist the stage is set for a ponderous debate between rationality and belief, science and superstition.

The problem is all this has been done before and done better. From Manoj Night Shyamalan to Ramu himself, both Hollywood and Bollywood have dealt extensively with the haunted house/possessed child scenario and pushed the boundaries of horror cinema to its farthest reach. Over the years films like The Shining, The Sixth Sense, and our very own Raat and Vastu Shastra reinvigorated the horror genre. But now the same genre is in grave danger of dying a slow and painful death, especially if Phoonk becomes a director’s idea of a scary movie. Ultimately a hapless Rajiv resorts to taking the help of a Tantrik, whose behaviour is so bizarre it seems like he just escaped from a lunatic asylum. And this leads to the movie’s preposterous, ridiculous climax.

The ending is so awful it cannot be described in words. Lets just say that nearly everyone in the packed theatre were either giggling or shaking their heads in disbelief. And believe me Ramu did not intend the climax as a comedy.
Before the film begins, a statement is issued on screen saying that all the events in the film are fictitious and the movie does not endorse black magic in any way. Actually that’s all that the movie does, as the film ends up being about a rationalist’s transformation into a complete believer of the supernatural. And coming from a self-professed non-believer like Ramu its all the more mystifying. Maybe he needs all the divine help he can get after so many flops. For all you know his prayers may just be answered this time going by the packed halls.

God save the horror genre!!
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