Phoonk

It’s superstition…till it happens to you! I had found that line quite catchy and also a few of Ramu’s recent blog posts/interviews on the subject made me quite eager to check out his latest offering Phoonk. He also cited his inspiration from Yendamuri Veerendranath’s Tulasidalam where at the beginning the husband is an atheist while the wife is a staunch believer and towards the end they switch places.

However, after watching Phoonk I wish I hadn’t read anything about it and instead expected a timepass horror flick. Because Phoonk turns to be just an average horror movie filled with stock characters who make you laugh more than necessary. And it is quite deficient in spooky moments too. I couldn’t find anything new or different from any other flick except that the “bhatakti aatma taking revenge” is the not cause of bodily possession…but is instead a disgruntled couple performing black magic. The so called conflict between the beliefs of the protagonists are not convincing either. After all, in every horror film doesn’t the protagonist not believe in the supernatural but ends up using the help a tantrik to get rid of the cause of trouble!

I guess the film would have been lot scarier if some of the characters looked/acted normal than like in a Ramsay Brothers movie. One sincere piece of advice to Ramu – Please don’t use more than one dream sequence to generate false scares. It’s quite an outdated technique and highly irritating. Phoonk also suffers from a stuffed-toy/showpiece camera-angle overload. That worked so well in “Bhoot” but here it is very annoying. Generally, I hate it when members of the audience make catcalls and pass comments while watching a horror film but in this case for once I thought it was justified because the movie wasn’t scary at all and neither was able to sustain my interest.

If you want to watch this film then please remove the notion (if you had one like me) that you’ll be treated to some intellectual horror saga which will challenge your beliefs. Sometimes Ramu disappoints you with his films and sometimes with what he says about those same films prior to release. Phoonk falls into the latter category. As a mindless flick for horror fans it’s just about ok.