Tag Archives: murder

Seconds

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Vampire Owl :: I can’t spare seconds. No, I am owlifying right now. Don’t you realize that?

Vampire Bat :: Seconds? What about seconds? I am talking about sparing hours for the movie called Seconds.

Vampire Owl :: I doubt if I am available. I am at work. I have already prepared the giant globe of domination to owlify the world. I just need a suitable power source. I can’t risk losing my focus due to a movie now.

Vampire Bat :: I see this as your evil plot to blame me after I watch this movie alone.

Vampire Owl :: I don’t understand why I would do that. You are the movie watcher and I am the side-kick for now. But after owlification, all of you will be my side-kicks.

Vampire Bat :: I don’t see how your plan is going to work. Lets watch the movie instead. This will make four Jayasurya movies in a month in the theatre. Isn’t it something new?

Vampire Owl :: Four? That is shocking – even I can’t play four roles in my life.

Vampire Bat :: Yes, Iyobinte Pusthakam, Lal Bhadur Shastri, Mathai Kuzhappakkaranalla and now Seconds.

Vampire Owl :: I see the level of movie coming down with each of them. This is why you should place your head on the rails for that movie train too.

Vampire Bat :: Even the boogeyman has been more generous with movies.

[Starts the car].

The people of the story :: An insurance agent, Veeramani (Jayasurya) lives in an agraharam with his wife (Anusree Nair) and is troubled by the lack of confidence and due to a certain amount of fear that he seems to have, he struggles to sell and achieve his target. He gets an appointment with a psychatrist and hopes to solve his problems. Meanwhile, a sales manager named Teena (Aparna Nair) is hoping to pay off her family’s debts which has risen up to a sum of twenty five lakh rupees which is clearly beyong her abilities. At the same time, a wedding photographer called Feroze (Vinay Fort) is trying to reach somewhere high in his profession with good contacts and is also hoping to buy a building for a new shop. A goon who spends most of his time in jail, Thampi (Vinayakan) is the next person on the list, and he wanders around having drugs. There is the point of view of each of these characters taken into consideration, and they are brought together in a lift.

What is it about? :: The movie is about the above mentioned people coming together in a lift of a big apartment building in the city of Cochin, and three of the four people are murdered on the location. We are only shown that Teena murders Thampi, as the other killings occur when lift gets stuck in the middle with no power. The prime suspect is Teena as expected, but the question remains if it was Thampi who murdered the rest and tried to kill Teena as he is the typical bad guy and criminal. Out of the two other people, it seems that only Veeramani has a chance for survival. As the investigations progress, the answer to all the question lie somwhere in the flashback. But there seems to be no link between these people, and the question remains about the motive as it doesn’t seem to be there at all. Four strangers in a lift, and three dead; not the best case to solve for any police team – how will it go this time?

The defence of Seconds :: The movie starts with a full power sequence, a death and the murder which happens; from there, it goes on to the usual stuff which gets the power back in the second half, and ends nicely with a twist. The struggling middle manages to connect the beginning and the end to create the desired effect, even as the theatre response still seemed pretty bad. Its non-linear pattern of narration is actually nicely woven to create the desired suspense, even as the frequency of the same could have been reduced along with the repetitions that we notice. The reason why we avoid some of the faults is due to the hope that the mistakes are corrected by the next movie. Malayalam movies still have a lot to explore in the thriller territory, and let this movie be another step in the same direction – a very small one. The cast performances are also a plus for sure. Lets categorize this one as an action-drama-thriller; should work better that way.

Claws of flaw :: Seconds struggles to keep the audience interested, as it doesn’t have that much of a powerful characterization, and neither does it gives us the characters to cheer for. It also works on the drama side too much, and its thriller side is virtually absent throughout the half sans the first few minutes. There is a lot of drag between the first nice sequence and the final ones, as what comes between is just ordinary drama that we see too many times at different occasions. In that case, we can consider the movie to be too long, as without a better characterization, this show of the life of characters is rather dull. We could have gone from the first sequence to the second half without bothering much about the life of these characters, but that certainly wouldn’t have been possible considering the already short length of the movie – there comes the need for a longer investigation and more thrills. It is a problem with the plot as a whole, but it is good as parts. There is also too much of the breaking of narrative and the re-telling of the same scenes which affect the flow.

Performers of the soul :: Making us wonder if there was clumsiness or laziness in characterization as well as the script, the four protagonists emerge here, and among them, Aparna Nair needs the most applause as she does her job with a fine touch. It is nice to see her in a major role after some time. In a role that is no challenge to him Jayasurya also excels. Vinay Fort is very good, but is often undone by the character’s lack of stability. Vinayakan also goes through his role with ease like nobody else. Salim Kumar just has a cameo in which nothing much is to be done, and Indrans and Sasi Kalinga are also limited to a few minutes on the screen. Anusree also has less dialogues and presence. Shankar Ramakrishnan is okay. May be the actors had a better chance with a better characterization and a better idea about what the makers were trying to achieve with the mixture of things.

How it finishes :: The movie leaves one with a strange feeling, like it seems that the movie is okay, but there is so much of incompleteness about it, and it did contribute with some boring moments to add to the already monotonous life. The movie should have been more clear in what it tries to achieve. Its power is the suspense and the twist about the murder mystery, which should have been further explored – here, the investigative side is too weak. The message here is still about the looks though, on how it can be deceiving, and how each second affects the life of a person according to one decision that he or she makes during the same. This could have been better than Angels, and still it isn’t – but the fate for both movies seems to be the same, especially with Lingaa and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies coming next weekend, and the former is expected to take a lot of audience away as it focuses on a similar audience. But lets hope for the best.

Release date: 5th December 2014
Running time: 105 minutes
Directed by: Aneesh Upasana
Starring: Jayasurya, Vinay Fort, Aparna Nair, Anusree Nair, Ambika Mohan, Vinayakan, Indrans, Salim Kumar, Riyaz Khan, Shankar Ramakrishnan, Sasi Kalinga, Narayanan Kutty

seconds

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Hate Story II

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Vampire Owl :: But I didn’t watch the first movie of this franchise.

Vampire Bat :: No need. This will not be connected to the prequel even that much as Sachin Tendulkar is to Maria Sharapova.

Vampire Owl :: That is indeed reassuring. Isn’t this Surveen Chawla the one who paired with Sreesanth in Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena?

Vampire Bat :: And in many Hindi serials with unknown people and those which none of us watches. She even hosted a television show called Comedy Circus Ke SuperStars.

Vampire Owl :: So this will create something new for the erotic genre in India or recreate whatever the first movie did?

Vampire Bat :: I would think that the only eroticism will be in the poster and the songs. She should be shooting people all around.

Vampire Owl :: So it should be cheating by the posters?

Vampire Bat :: Just like any other movie around here. Every movie pretends.

Vampire Owl :: At least we can watch the movie for her.

Vampire Bat :: Well, she is incredibly cute, even with a gun.

[Enters the movie hall].

What is it about? :: The scene shifts to Mumbai where Sonika (Surveen Chawla) who is attending regular photography classes. After the death of her parents, Mandar Mahatre (Shushant Singh) had become her guardian and is keeping her as a mistress. Mandar is a powerful political leader in Mumbai who is feared if not respected by all. She is forced to succumb to his demands until Akshay (Jay Bhanushali) comes to her life, and the two photography classmates become lovers. But as our villain understands that she is with some random guy, they are forced to run away to Goa, but that doesn’t stop our villain from going there and attempting to kill them both. She ties Akshay to the seat of a car and drowns him in a river while he buries the girl alive in a cemetery, but is found by a man who comes there to mourn a death. As she is shifted to the hospital, there are attempts to murder her, but soon she gets out of trouble and begin planning her vengeance. As expected, she starts from the lesser ones to go to the big fish, and the question remains if she can be good enough to take on such a powerful man who controls a lot of things in Mumbai including the police.

The defence of Hate Story 2 :: Well, our heroine no longer uses her body or sexuality to take revenge. She doesn’t go to that level of the protagonist of the first movie and just goes on to murder people – not in that much of a bloody fashion as Killl Bill, but she does finish them off nicely. Surveen Chawla is the highlight of the movie, but the erotic scenes are rare, and even absent in the case of the movie without the songs. It is in those songs that such scenes occur and so do those bikini scenes. Some of them even waits till the movie to end until coming up. So one can watch it not as an erotic movie as the songs will be available on television (haven’t checked them myself yet). Yes, she doesn’t stand with a bare back and a gun and neither does she appear like in some other posters which seems to have offended a few. I would say that the poster gives a different opinion about the movie, and being erotic is not one of the strong points of the movie. But the songs are really good, and they are nicely picturized without losing the mood of the movie except for one which comes with the hallucination. This should have enough to satisfy the fans of Surveen as well as the revenge movie fans. Unlike Ek Villain, this is also more original in its soul.

Claws of flaw :: With choosing to do away with the erotic scenes which actually powered it before the release, the strangest thing in the movie is Jay Bhanushali coming back from the dead as the glowing avatar as part of her hallucinations. I do wonder why they even had to think about it. Then the romantic side comes up with him at the wrong moments, and in the end it also helps to add a few more erotic scenes in a small screen with the credits. But most of the photos on the posters never really happens in the movie. Even with those which happen, they are in the songs, and that would give rise to the question if getting some video songs later will be enough. It has so much less erotica and compared to its predecessor, it even lags in the thrills and the cast performance – even the dark shades becomes less and the story is just average. It is not something that we haven’t seen before, and adds to the large number of revenge movies which are part of our movie collection. It is really a predictable end that awaits the audience too, and you know what it will include. We needed a lot more and with the kind of views that the trailer had, a much better movie was expected.

Performers of the soul :: This movie is about Surveen Chawla and the character that he plays, and it is the story of her hatred which can only be destroyed by the taste of vengeance. She is nothing less than wonderful on her debut. I was pretty confident about her being good as this had to completely depend on her. She maintains her level through different emotions, and her transformation is good. She is comparatively better as the lover and the one facing her own troubles, and I would guess that the face suits a damsel in distress. But the same can’t be said about the rest of the cast who falters. Jay Bhanushali struggles and it was a bad idea to bring him back as hallucinations, as he was quite good until then – later he was made an illusion with the support of music and the time of entrance is mostly terrible too. As the movie was about the heroine, it is still mostly fine. Sushant Singh is okay, and there are moments when he is very good. But overall, he had the potential to be a better villain which is ruined by some lazy writing and leaves the movie to our heroine as expected, and thankfully, she excelled. Sunny Leone is there just for the item song “Pink Lips”, which is also okay, but the song scene springs out nowhere and disappears without trace.

Soul exploration :: The movie asserts the need for revenge, but its hatred is weaker than the prequel even with the presence of a villain worth hating, right from the beginning to the end, at no point stating otherwise with his action or speech. What our protagonist does is actually something that she should have done a long time ago. She is scared, but as she comes back from the dead, she becomes fearless. Near-death experiences do bring the best, doesn’t it? Or is it the love that guides her? I would say a little bit of both, but she becomes the revenge seeker without remorse. It has its messages about the evil that is in the society and its ability to destroy the life of a common person, but doesn’t really work on it further. The movie has the hero being murder by water, the heroine attempted to be killed under earth, one villain killed by fire and the another one by air – good use of the elements, I would say, but I do wonder if that was actually meant to be so. Ek Villain and Hate Story 2 are still signs that the thriller genre is doing fine in Bollywood, and it is actually a good sign – along with the matching fact that the heroine gets murdered early in the former and the hero in the later.

How it finishes :: I hope a certain lack of more ideas could be forgiven as I was having heavy fever while watching this one at the theatre. Well, fever is such a mortal thing and it can’t stop the Vampire Bat, even as there is no denying that things got worse after watching the movie – the air conditioner and the fan stopped in the theatre, still the fever got worse. I guess as far as I can walk, I can go to a theatre and watch movies. I had thought a lot of things about this one while watching, but I guess I can always come up with more in detail later at http://theteacerebration.wordpress.com/. Still, I can say for sure that if you liked Hate Story‘s first entry, you can go for this, but remember that this not that erotic and there is no working on the same lines as the prequel except for the fact that there is revenge by a female protagonist. I haven’t been a fan of Surveen Chawla, but if you are, I guess you will surely need to try this one – otherwise, just try your luck. This is a movie which can go either way for the audience, and it is more of an opportunity which could have been better used.

Release date: 18th July 2014
Running time: 129 minutes
Directed by: Vishal Pandya
Starring: Surveen Chawla, Jay Bhanushali, Sushant Singh, Mika Singh, Siddharth Kher, Rajesh Khera

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Stoker

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The legend of Stoker :: The first idea image that comes to one’s mind with the name “Stoker” is that of a vampire, if not exactly that of the primary antagonist of a 1897 Gothic horror novel. Thanks to Bram Stoker, the legend of Dracula has been something that continues to be synonymous with vampirism itself. But, there is nothing directly related to Bram Stoker here, and lets not make any guesses about it being something about the life of the creator of the world’s most well-known vampire (one of the few English writers whose name I have known since childhood). Stoker gives you no blood sucker, and even when there are murders, there is no such behaviour of not wasting the blood. The Vampire Bat has been historically against wastage of blood, and is certain to have been sad about his own idea about this movie being wrong, but that feeling never stood strong till the end of the movie. Stoker was never supposed to be about vampires, and it was not meant to be the usual horror movie; it had to be different.

What is it about? :: India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is not going through a good period of time after her father Richard (Dermot Mulroney) dies in a car accident. Her mentally unstable mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) and India doesn’t seem to get along well. Richard’s brother Charlie (Matthew Goode) comes to the scene at that time, and keeps talking about his life which was mostly spent traveling all around the world. His stay at the house turns out to be longer than expected, and even as Evelyn likes that, India is mostly indifferent to his presence and on some occasions, rather not happy with his existence. She continues to keep away from him despite the fact that he seems to be trying quite hard to be very friendly with her. But as almost everyone who has an argument with Charlie disappears, India begins to feel that there is more to him than what meets the eye. Later, she even finds one of the dead bodies in the freezer. But she won’t be able to tell that to her mother who seems to have developed some intense feelings for his charms.

The defence of Stoker :: The movie successfully brings that creepy environment into play, with a huge house and its surrounding which seem to have more secrets than any normal person can endure, but that would eventually be proved wrong by the two characters, the introvert niece and her uncle whose existence was never known as his presence is more mysterious than the absence. The association of big houses with horror comes as no surprise, as everybody needs room to store some horrible secrets; the movies in most of the languages has the same, and Stoker has used that very well. There are lots of surprises in store too, especially related to the new member of the family, and the youngest member of the same who always had it in her to bring that shock element for which we are made to wait. Is that all about horror? No, it is mostly about horror and rest is about fantasy which follows horror in such a way that both becomes beautifully intertwined. The visuals are so nicely done so that the strange, creepy atmosphere is never out of our mind, even with nothing vicious being tried.

The claws of flaw :: Stoker can disappoint the usual horror lover depending on what he or she is looking for. It doesn’t have anything supernatural or serial killers who comes out of nowhere to create a pool of blood, even as this one does have enough blood and gruesome murders. There are no weird faces coming out of the dark making strange noises and trying to take advantage of that shocking side. This doesn’t go through that path set by Insidious and Sinister, the former needing no introduction and the latter having the most read horror movie review on my blog even as it was written almost an year after it was released, in the honorary movies list. The movie has that uniqueness which might make some audience disinterested. There is also some part of the movie where it might seem that nothing really happens, but that is not really that usual drag. The movie could have still used a little more of the direct horror, and there it might have lost a few fans too. It is also so much mixed in its genre that it can trouble fans of many genres. The grief and feelings in this movie can be highly subjective for the viewers too.

Performers of the soul :: This one comes from the South Korean director of the much admired Oldboy which was voted as one of the best Asian movies, and also Thirst which seems to have also got a similar reception – so that expectations were going to be high and I would say that this one delivers nicely, at least for me. Matthew Goode’s performance comes as real stunner in this one, as he exhibits both sides of being terrifying as well as charming with so much brilliance. Nicole Kidman also does nice with what might be the best someone can give for such a character. The best part of the movie should be Mia Wasikowska though. I mostly remember her from Alice in Wonderland in which she was so good, and she was the best Jane Eyre that most of us had ever known. Here, she takes that into another level as she is presented with a character who might be one of the strangest girls ever. She plays no Carrie, but even this character is so gifted in many ways along with being disturbed that she keeps us with her even as not completely on her side, and there comes the subjectivity of the viewers into play.

Soul exploration :: This is the first time that I have noticed Mia Wasikowska with black hair, and as that seems to suit her so well, it adds to the soul too. Eighteen year old girl and never really smiling in the movie – now that is more than just interesting for a Vampire Bat’s soul. Caught between her innocence and awareness, India doesn’t become like the others; she chooses to be different. But what is to follow when she decides to follow her instincts rather than her innocence? She is a lot like her uncle, and that is something that is proved again and again in the movie. They both have a lot in common, and India always has that invitation into that dark world which she can resist only with her best attempts. But her world has already shattered, and any resistance that she can produce would rather become an illusion which won’t help her a bit. She has always had the dark side with all its strength, and it is only herself that keeps her back, and there will always be a revelation which can turn the whole world upside down.

How it finishes :: Stoker successfully keeps the audience in the movie and doesn’t throw away its logic, even when it slows down in pace, an achievement which not many horror movies can boast about. You can say that with most of the shots of the movie. Stoker has style and it has substance; to add to it, this is a thriller and horror movie with the elements of drama, not something which is easy to achieve. “Don’t disturb the family” is a nice tagline for the movie too, as we do come to know what happens when even the youngest member of the family is disturbed – not a good sign for anyone planning to do the same. You got to love the way they look in the poster too, especially Mia Wasikowska; Barnabas Collins of Dark Shadows shall approve it with an A+. Watch this one as a horror movie, a thriller, a coming-of-age story, a slasher flick, a tale of revenge and even as a strange romantic tragedy. Stoker might be strange to a number of people belonging to the normal audience category, but it has so much in it which makes it a force to be reckoned with.

Release date: 1st March 2013
Running time: 99 minutes
Directed by: Park Chan-wook
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Dermot Mulroney, Jacki Weaver, Lucas Till, Alden Ehrenreich, Phyllis Somerville, Ralph Brown, Judith Godrèche

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.

Sinister

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There was a time when I had a longing for movies of pure horror rather than the ones with blood and gore. My prayers were answered this year with The Conjuring, but I later came to know that there was a movie in 2012 which I missed, that was also dependent less on the blood and gore and more on the shocks and thrills. That movie was Sinister, and even as I almost confused it with Insidious for apparently no specific reason, here is another addition to my long list of favourite horror movies which can extend beyond any long paper. This is one of those movies which got released before our theatres had the courage to release horror movies here – lack of cowardice which they gained with The Conjuring and its long run in the theatres here. There was the pure absence of horror movies in the theatres before that, with the exception of hybrid movies like those of Resident Evil series. It is a strange thing, because they could have had a lot of success with Silent Hill last year and Evil Dead this year, but they decided to keep both out of theatres just like they did to Sinister. But there would be not many people who wouldn’t know of this movie, and that is a certainty.

We have the director of Hellraiser: Inferno and The Exorcism of Emily Rose working on this one – that was inspiring even as I can’t recollect the first movie and I never did watch the second. He would also direct Deus Ex, a movie based on the awesome computer game of the same name. The presence of Ethan Hawke was also interesting, as the last time I saw him was in an action-horror mix of a movie called Daybreakers, and I loved his performance in it. The movie also had a very interesting poster almost giving us the feeling of presence of a serial killer more and of a supernatural entity less. But what it gives us would be another result, a mixture of horror which has evolved into something innovative and new compared to the other horror movies of the year. I had also expected a lot of blood and gore, but this one has not much of it, and that works mostly to its advantage rather than against it. From what we see, it is just a simple horror film with innovation inside it. But it might be more than that, as there is a lot to this movie than what meets the eye. We have a lot of interesting things in the movie which arouse our curiosity by a good margin.

The movie begins with a Super 8 footage depicting a family of four standing under a tree with heads covered, hands tied and nooses around their necks, and someone causing their deaths by hanging. We can later see that a true crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) moves into the house with his family of his wife, daughter and son. He was not having a good run as a crime writer for sometimes, and believes that this might change his situation. He doesn’t tell his family that this was the house where the murders took place. By staying there, he hopes to unveil something about the murders and write about it in his book thus bringing him back to fame and fortune. As he tries to mix fact and fiction without much hope, he soon discovers a projector and several reels of Standard 8 mm footage under the label of home movies. To his shock, he discovers that they are rather snuff movies, and it shows different families being brually murders in several ways: being burnt in a car, drowned in a pool, throats being cut, being run over by a lawn mower and finally the hanging which was shown in the beginning of the movie.

He actually notices a figure with a demonic face witnessing all these murders from some part of the screen. He also discovers childish drawings showing the murders, along with sketches of a demonic figure, whose name is written as Mr. Boogie. He finds out that the sketches are made by the one member of the family who went missing in the case of each murder which took place at different places during different time periods, with the helps of a deputy at the nearby station. He feels that there is some killer specialized in the occult or demon worship behind it after seeing a sign and knowing that it is a little kid who went missing all the time. He feels that he is on to something huge this time. Trying to decipher the symbol seen in the films, he comes to know that it is relate to a pagan Sumerian deity named Bughuul (Nick King), who would usually kill entire families before he takes their children into his world and consume their souls. Meanwhile, strange things happen at his house, as he has visions of dead, decaying children as well as the monster. His son has night terrors and his daughter draws strange things on the wall. So the game is on – are they hallucinations, an extremely smart killer or something supernatural at work?

Ethan Hawke is the star of the movie, as the man who investigates for money and fame, and almost feels that he has got something about a serial killer which the police didn’t, but later realizes that by moving into that house and searching for information, he has put the lives of himself and his family in trouble. We can see him making a sincere effort to portray his character who is determined at first, hopeful later and beyond all expectations by the end. The character himself is the tragic flaw which has them in peril, or accurately talking about it, there is the desire to unravel a mystery which was not supposed to be known to him. In one way or the other, this writer becomes another Doctor Faustus and even without signing a deal with the demons, brings about bleeding dagger on the head of his family and himself. His idea of hiding this information from his family, and telling his wife that the place is nowhere near any house where any murders took place doesn’t help at all. He might have been a best-selling author with a lot of fans, but not everyone would care about the same. He needs this work to be done so badly, and we can see his feelings, and well done Ethan Hawke in bringing the same to us.

Our director also bounces back from a not that good remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still with Keanu Reeves, and gives us a lot to expect from Deus Ex. The movie shocks with its child images itself [Spoilers Ahead – you may skip to the last paragraph] One of the most shocking things in the movie is the realization about the children, as they wanders around in their decaying state – as if the result of the evil that has befallen them in the form of Mr. Boogie. Yes, the children are damned, and taken to the other world of the evil deity whom we can interpret as a demon. Before they are taken, there is the manipulation by the creature they call Mr. Boogie who makes them kill all their family members themselves before taken into the other dimension inside that movie. The process repeats very often as the creatures takes his own collection of souls to feed on. We do remember the 2008 horror movie The Children, don’t we? Yes, the children are the evil ones, manipulated out of their supposed innocence, like William Golding depicted in Lord of the Flies. This movie also asserts the fact that they can be easily corrupted – by circumstance or by a villain; or even by the circumstance which is the villain.

One has to wonder if Sinister gives a little too much and fails to keep the suspense glowing till the end. But it is a clear fact that they have rightly added those shocks to help the procedure. It does remind one of many movies, but none directly and therefore it is quite fresh for most of the audience. This could rather be a predecessor to what awesomeness which was to come next year in the form of The Conjuring. I did feel that keeping the creature from the other world as simply the devil would have been much better, as it is more of an entity whom we can attribute taking human souls with. With its theory of goodness plagued by the branches of evil, and the multiple shocks involving decaying children as well as that shadowy figure that is Mr. Boogie, Sinister does something that most of the horror movies fail; that is to bring a powerful plot with lots of brains behind it. The creepy atmosphere rightly ornate this movie with such an ease, and if someone other than Ethan Hawke scores, it is our own monster from the movie with right support from the kids who have turned into his own children.

PS: Thanks to Simon (http://simonsayswatchthis.wordpress.com/) for the recommendation 😀

Release date: 12th October 2012
Running time: 110 minutes
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Michael Hall D’Addario, Clare Foley, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Vincent D’Onofrio, Nick King, Victoria Leigh, Blake Mizrahi, Cameron Ocasio, Ethan Haberfield, Danielle Kotch

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.

3G

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The Vampire Bat’s desire for horror has been getting stronger and stronger every day. The procedure of watching Murder 3 actually accelerated it to the maximum and therefore 3G was not to be missed. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, The Cabin in the Woods, House at the End of the Street or The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia never came to the theatres here. There was no question of The Woman in Black. For Paranormal Activity 4, they might have had an early heart attack. But unfortunately, Piranha 3DD did arrive as pseudo-horror. The only hope was to adjust with the Resident Evil and the Underworld series as horror even as they could no longer fit into that category. This ridiculous attitude towards horror might be the worst thing about the theatres and malls around here, as they don’t really mind the local language horror movies, not checking if they are any good. At least 3G made it to most of the theatres around here, even if it is no material of Silent Hill quality. The silence of depression which every horror fan faces around here needs to be treated, and therefore, this review is going to be quite lenient – there will be no hard measures taken on this movie and it will be given a free pass in many departments.

“Wherever you go i am there: Gadha Jam” said Mohanlal in the 1989 Malayalam movie Vandanam. Here, it is a mobile phone which says the same. It is an advanced phone for a spirit to try and infect, with touch screen and 3G facility. The movie begins with a guy murdering his girlfriend stabbing her through the right eye right after proposing to her in an abandoned area. Then the screen shifts to a stylish opening credits shown in a very innovative way in the beginning. There is the mention of the billions of phone users in the world. It also talks about the large number of phantom calls which are received worldwide which cannot be traced. Here, these calls are related to spirits of the other world trying to connect to this world. That did sound a little overreaching for me, but that also gave a push both to the expectations and the skepticism. This is the beginning of an ambitious plot and we might be talking more about its ambiguity later, but for now lets get on with it.

The 3rd generation of mobile telecommunications technology makes way for Sheena (Sonal Chauhan) who comes out of the saline water of Fiji in a red bikini; and that much talked-about scene ends with a not-so-happy conversation with her lover Sam (Neil Nitin Mukesh). But all the minute problems are solved as he comes to Fiji to be with her, losing his mobile in the process and initiating the “Kaise Bataaoon” song. There are surely in love, but are always interrupted, first by Sam’s own hallucinations which makes him see demonic faces not only on others, but also as a ghost – something which interferes with their relationship. The second stage makes him near-possessed and almost makes him strangle Sheena in her bath tub and also to take his own life by hanging. Then the spirit seems to take over him completely. To add to it, there is a video of a girl getting murdered inside the phone while strange sights and voices happen on the outside. The attempt to get rid of the phone has already failed, as it came back from being deposited in the sea as well as being broken into pieces. That should have been expected when there are dead people involved.

Neil’s territory is divided into two, one of a passionate lover and the other of the possessed. His performance as the former is never under doubt and the as the latter is incredible at times and okay on the other occasions. One of those moments is when he is seen possessed over the bath tub of his lover and the other when he asks a priest, “Have you forgiven yourself?”. The moments are strange, but effective enough. There is also a scene of bloody murder which is strange, but still powered by his thrilling performance. Sonal has the supporting role, looking gorgeous and playing the character who hesitates to leave her lover despite of the haunting that happens around him and inside his mind. She never looks less than stunning throughout the movie. Her presence here only does the movie good, even though it is surely not for giving a big performance that she is there. I wouldn’t guess that people were expecting something else around here.

This movie is less of a thriller and more of a horror flick, and in that case, this one is far ahead of any of the movies in Bollywood. I would not deny that Murder 2 and Murder 3 were better in wholeness, but the fact remains that 3G better in parts. But, the problem is that this lack of wholeness makes this one inferior to the other two I mentioned. Still, the advantages of 3G includes its ability and its use of that ability to successfully generate the visual and audible fear supported by good use of sound effects & camera, in a much spookier way compared to its predecessors. The creepy environment is successfully created even in the presence of two of the best looking people on the screen, and the attention successfully shifts more to the horror elements than them. The fact that things get kind of absurd and fails to make much sense as a movie with its weaker logic still makes it good in parts. 3G certainly has its moments of horror glory, but there also those of extreme stupidity creating moments of unintentional comedy. This is more of a minor oasis in the desert of romantic comedies and mindless action for the starving horror fans in India.

There was a lot of scope for this movie, but the ghost who tries to be Miss India and a grown-up version of The Ring girl at the same time, along with the fluctuations in the story has left the audience with more to ask for. There is a certain absence of intellect as well as the presence of ambiguity throughout the movie, even as the first half rarely explains anything. The best not-so-hot, not-so-intimate scene in the movie still came in the first half, when our hero is playing a game of car race in a taxi in the mobile and with a crash in the game comes a car crash in real life, as they land in the hospital with the spirit mobile which is left unscratched. Well, watch it for Neil Nitin Mukesh’s depiction of two personalities, the possessed and the unpossessed, the dazzling beauty that is Sonal Chauhan and the interesting concept of horror which hasn’t been tried this effectively in Indian movies. There is also a message against porn in the movie, and the presence of a hidden message against the effect of technology in our lives, especially that of the mobile phones. I hope you can recollect that much remembered scene from The Ring when Samara crawls from the tv and kills Noah with fear. Nobody crawls out of the mobile though, as the ghost is both inside and outside; but keep that in mind.

The need for horror has reached its highest point right now. Unless, the multiplexes and regular theatres do not hesitate to show the bloody movies of International horror standards, there will be no satisfaction for the common horror fan. The movies like 3G, Murder 3 and Table No.21 might serve as satisfactory thrillers or sources of horror which might give a small, but certain amount of relief. If one thinks about Dracula 2012 3D in Malayalam, no lets just leave the literary works alone; for they are to be more classics than just horror and the vampire life would just be like a random Twilight unless the soul of the work makes it way to the screen. Well, how can you reach the heart even when you cut incredibly deep if there is none? How can you influence the brain if it is already frozen and unavailable? 3G doesn’t really appeal to the brain, but for the heart, it is another story. It won’t really matter how this one would turn out to be, but there will be no stopping the horror genre. If the best horror movies are brought to the theatres, that would be incredibly satisfying, or otherwise there is 3G.

Release date: 15th March 2013
Running time: 120 minutes (estimate)
Directed by: Sheershak Anand-Shantanu Ray Chibber
Starring: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Sonal Chauhan, Mrinalini Sharma, Asheesh Kapur

3G

@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.

Murder III

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The Vampire Bat has never been the fan of the original movie, Murder – but he was forced to change that one opinion to think about following the series with Murder 2. That made sure that this was going to be a series which has the worst in the beginning itself. It doesn’t matter how good people might think it was, it was never a good copy from Hollywood. The second was more close to glory as Prashant Narayanan came up with one of the best performances witnessed for such a long time. It was both gruesome and awesome at the same time. Then, the question would be about Murder 3 right now and the answer might be somewhere in between the first and the second of the series. It could never rise upto the second, but still creates a better impact than the first. It is supposed to be the remake of the Colombian thriller The Hidden Face, but at no point does it gives a feeling that it does not belong to this part of the world, for it has been changed well enough. It might still seem to defy logic, but that is something which is to be forgiven to attain the maximum effect of the needed horror.

Any disappointment about the movie has to be left to the first half, which is a little strange – it has a photographer who has turned alcholic after losing his girlfriend, along with his new girlfriend. He is a young man who just lost his future wife and has brought another one out of nowhere; not really inappropriate for the Murder series, but still something which tells the viewer a little about the protagonist, the new-age Icarus whose interests are as unlimited as his ambitions. He has his wings, but the question might be about the path through which he is flying, and also about his other interests while moving so close to that fire-starter who can burn more than just a few things of wax. He might have to think again about all these, and it is doubtful when he will have the opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, his first girlfriend is more of the one who sacrifices her own interests. Now that would make the question of her leaving him obsolete. That is a fact which would keep the cops on his tail, investigating about his hands in her disappearance. But knowing them as a loving couple, not many would doubt his involvement in her absence.

His second girlfriend is more of a Lady Icarus, from one angle, even as she is shown more as a sympathizer in the first half. There is no point where one can be sure about this one character though. She is not really a static character, but still not someone whos progress can be easily traced. There are events happening all around, indicating the presence of some supernatural force and a mystery that surrounds the protagonist. Most of it just seem to happen just for the sake of frightening, until most of the twists and further explanations are done in the second half of the movie. It brings light to what lies inside the shadows of a world which looks too simple from outside. It brings two worlds and combine them into one; there is one inside the mirror and the other outside; both human, one free and the other imprisoned – but the souls of both might be in their own prison. One of them is not seen and the other is there for everyone to see. A reversal of roles is a possibility which is attempted soon enough, what lies beneath the depths of the hearts of two women and one man is difficult to know.

The whole story revolves around the three people and the love triangle. While the first half almost made a mess of it with a kind of “romantic horror” or “horror romance” which was neither here nor there, the relations get intense and further explained in the second half. It suddenly surprises and even shocks the viewer out of nowhere, at a moment when it seemed to be running out of everything. It starts climbing from there, towards a good, justified climax and a fine finish. That wouldn’t make the first half bad though, as it never really failed in a collateral manner even in the beginning stages as some might have thought it to be. There are shades of what might happen in the second half right from the beginning itself. The essence of mystery never leaves the little world of this movie. It leaves some scratches for the audience to be in the hunt for the mystery. The creepy house and the strange surroundings are supported by a bath tub, bathroom sink and the shower acting in a supernatural way.

The most exciting question of the movie would be if there is a murder which would justify the title? The second movie had lots of bloody murders, but this one is more of a psychological murder. There is the murder of faith and trust, and there is the possiblity of one or two murders which might have happened in the end – that is an ambiguity, an ending which could be interpreted in more than one way. It might be an end with the death of two, death of one and the imprisonment of the other, or with nothing too bad happening in the mansion. Love continues to be a matter of life, death, horror, mental disorder and everything else, and its role is above the supernatural yet again. It might reach even bigger heights of the mind in a possible Murder 4. What we see in the movie is that redemption is attained by the ones who has taken them out of the attention of fake, carnal love. The rest are left to feel the heat. Well, there is beauty to the heat, and gorgeousness to the horror – not one, but two; for there is no way to deny that.

Sara Loren and Aditi Rao Hydari has made this one more of a movie centred on two women, almost entirely different, but still has their lives centred on one man. The former keeps the first half running with her stunning looks while the latter runs the second half. The female characters run from sympathy to seduction and possessiveness to torment, a journey which is independent from one another, but not entirely separated in the sequence of events. Both of them begin as simple victims to an infatuation which drives them to one man and the creepy mansion. It is only a matter time before the love-birds would be no less than the vultures of selfishness. As it continues to bring more and more questions into the heads of the viewers, the more successful it becomes. But still, there are the missing parts, for the movie has its own low points where its horror becomes kind of laughable. But that is something worth forgiving for the total effect, especially for the minutes towards the end of the movie.

Thinking about the most talked-about side of the movie, this is not exactly the erotic thriller. There is sensousness and the scarcity in the department of clothing could be taken into account. But this actually takes the elements of relationships and mental status to the new heights instead of the physical relationships. This time, it gets closer to the emotions even if the skinshow never loses its role in the movie. The philosophy might be mostly hidden, but the absence of a true villain or a true hero is the evidence of the fact that this is more open to the discussions than ever, unlike the previous two movies of the series. That adds to the absence of Emraan Hashmi as a new thing to the series. In simple words, what Murder 3 has done is that it has provided some proof that there is hope around here for the horror genre even without ghosts and serial killers; there is future in many forms, and this future is more than just stunning.

Release date: 15th February 2013
Running time: 120 minutes
Directed by: Vishesh Bhatt
Starring: Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sara Loren, Rajesh Shringarpure, Shekhar Shukla

murder3 copy

@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.