PIZZA(2012)

Cast:
Vijay Sethupathi
Remya Nambeesan

                                    

The basic plot of the movie revolves around Michael who works as a Pizza delivery boy and lives with his girl friend Anu,who is an aspiring writer and has an obsession about ghosts and Paranormal things.Michael is shown to be Claustrophobic and irritated with his girl-friends obsession. Things start getting strange when Michael finds out that his boss's daughter is being possessed and experiences her being exorcised which brings panic and a belief in ghosts in him.The best move of the movie comes when Michael sets out for a pizza delivery to a house which turns out to be haunted.The Movie steps to the next level from a bland comedy to an intense horror/suspense thriller keeping the audiences guessing.The revelations in the end provides the necessary support for all the happenings making Pizza a perfect and best thriller that came out from India in the recent times.

Vijay Sethupathi excels in his role as Michael,from a cowardice vulnerable character to a courageous young man.The variations he shows are perfect for the character.Since most part of the movie deals with Michael the rest of the cast have only a little to offer which comes out well.Moving to the technical aspects since most part of the movie happens inside a haunted house the music plays a major role and Santhosh Narayanan provides the required eerie tone which is top notch.Gopi Amarnath’s cinematography is excellent both with the romantic and Haunting sequences.The screenplay is tight and adds to Debutante Karthik Subbaraj's excellent directorial skills.

Pizza starts of well but shifts into a normal Tamil movie mode with romance and humor(only with a subtle treatment) for most of the first half and bounces back furiously gripping the audiences till the last minute.The best thing about the movie is that despite having a simple plot it keeps one guessing the whole time.The haunted house sequences definitely make Pizza a worthy watch. Overall with a believable performance from the lead, tight screenplay and the eerie haunted house sequences Pizza is an absolute delight and does increase the scope of more genre movies from India.I say Order your "South-Indian" Pizza today.

Kaun..? (1999)

CAST:
Urmila Matondkar
Manoj Bajpee
Sushant Singh

ANALYSIS:

'KAUN' is a Bollywood flick and a unique Bollywood flick which belongs to the 'Whodunit' genre and the other interesting point is that it has only 3 principal characters. Other than a group of people who make a brief appearance for 10 seconds and an unknown dead body, it's just about three people inside a house.Well, given that the third character enters the house after more than half of the movie is finished it's basically two characters in the movie, a Paranoid young woman and a Psychotic visitor.'KAUN' is movie which shows what happens inside a house far from human habitation on a stormy day when a lost Psychotic looking stranger tries to intrude into the home of a paranoid young woman who is home alone,and a guy calling himself as a cop enters the house after a while.

After reading through the strange looking synopsis of the movie and observing Urmila and Manoj Bajpai in the casting it is obvious that this movie is directed by Mr.Creative Genius Ram Gopal Varma a.k.a. RGV.Though he does not do films like this anymore 'KAUN' is an absolutely brilliant experiment(considering Bollywood) which works for most of the part.Written by Anurag Kashyap (claimed as the best 'cult' director of Bollywood now) this movie has every reason to make one curious before watching it and your curiosity won't be wasted. Sandeep Chowta provides the perfect sound effects and so does Mazhar Kamran with his camera work. The huge house,the dark attic, fishpond ,stormy climate,a little cat and the constant audio from the Television warning about a Serial killer on loose play their own subtle characters intensifying the climate inside the house.

Coming to the performances Urmila is at her natural best with the sexy curves and brilliant acting skills as usual. She perfectly fits into the role of ''Madam'' a confused and paranoid young woman. Manoj Bajpai is the standout performer in the movie.He displays everything from feared to death to rib-tickling humor and suits the Psychotic strangers's role without a doubt. Sushant Singh doesn't have a long character but does his best in what he gets.

Overall it is very hard to review a movie which is an experiment more than an ambitious project and 'KAUN' is one of those rare experimental movies of Hindi cinema.It's a suspense thriller with subtle humor and strong casting,technical aspects. It has it's flaws but is undoubtedly an entertaining and an enjoyable flick.Look out for inspirations drawn from Tarantino!!!

Shaapit(2010)

CAST:

Aditya Narayan
Rahul Dev
Shweta Agarwal
Shubh Joshi


ANALYSIS:

Vikram Bhatt who made a great impact on Bollywood with 'Raaz' established himself as a horror movie specialist since then. But his movies barely worked post Raaz. ' 1920 ' a thrilling tale of possession ends on a bad note raging the audiences for copying 'The Exorcist' scene to scene in the penultimate moments of the film,but the movie worked though for most of the part. 'Raaz 3' was his only success post 1920. Okay now I will end the banter and say that 'Shaapit' is a midget in the world of "Disaster movies".

The Concept of 'Shaapit' is innovative and thrilling:A curse carried through generations of a Royal family, which is guarded by a ghost. Unfortunately Kaaya (our leading lady) belongs to be the third or fourth generation of the Royal family and cannot get married to Aman (our leading guy) and keeps getting hurt by the ghost whenever she tries to get in contact with him because of the curse. Now Aman sets off on a journey with his friend & a Professor of Paranormal sciences(?) to destroy the ghost guarding the curse and save the life of Kaaya.The story shifts to various places even a different time period during the movie. How could one make a mess of such a handsome looking story line???

Vikram Bhatt does have great skills and is an excellent storyteller but makes up some seriously complex concepts for his movies which are totally illogical and are never understood. His concepts are nothing less to Rocket science,he uses theories by the Mayans,some kind of weird connection between solids,liquids and gases which ends up sending people to other worlds and stuff in 'Shaapit' which are dumb and become very irritating at times. Next comes the CGI,which has always been a drawback of his movies. The CGI is so bad that it's just bad,even in his latest blockbuster 'Raaz 3D' it was laughable. Why not invest some money on it when the story is gonna need it very badly ??

Now moving on to the better parts the acting is believable. Aditya Narayan does a good job and never looks like a debutante and Rahul Dev as the Professor does an excellent job. Shubh Joshi and the others do their part well leaving no scope for bad acting which could have made the movie almost intolerable. The Music is exceptional like in any other Vikram Bhatt movie,but could have been way better if it was cut short of atleast two songs.

On the whole 'Shaapit' starts well and reaches the top by the end of the first hour. The last hour is just an endurance test.With a running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes it  should hard  to watch for non Bollywood viewers.

Gehrayee (1980)

Cast:

Padmini Kholapure
Shreeram Lagoo
Amrish Puri
Anant nag


Analysis:

While the basic plot of the movie is about Possession, 'Gehrayee' is more about a happy family pushed into tragedy because of  past deeds of the Family head. It's a movie with a very serious tone which is very rare among the Bollywood horror flicks released during the 70's and 80's. Nothing really happens in the movie for the whole time other than crying, family dinners, breakfasts and occasional weird behavior from the Possessed.

The Possession of the young girl slowly starts to put the family apart,constant son & dad fights, long discussions about to which doctor the girl should be taken to and what treatment she needs to have. As the movie progresses towards the end the intensity reaches the next stage as all the plans to cure the girls illness start to fail. Well the girls possession comes to an end ,she is fine and everything looks green but still there are 20 odd minutes left in the movie which sort of act like a revelation behind the evil happenings and a climax which  made me think of a David Fincher classic.

'Gehrayee' is an absolute delight if you are looking for some serious acting in the 80's Bollywood horror.Starring Anant nag (Introduced in a 'Shyam Benegal' movie) ,Shreeram Lagoo, the talented Padmini Kholapure as the possessed teen, and a brief role by the greatest villan of Bollywood 'Amrish Puri' this movie was bound to be acted well.The Directorial combo Vikas Desai-Aruna Raje did a great job in making a 2 hour long intriguing supernatural horror. The music needs a special mention as it transforms from a brighter happy tone into a tragic unsettling tone as the movie progresses.

Overall 'Gehrayee' is the best movie about Possession that came out from Bollywood and needs to be seen by every genuine fan (everyone I say) of Bollywood horror flicks.

Darna Mana Hai (Getting Scared is Forbidden) (2003)

Cast:
Saif Ali Khan
Vivek Oberoi
Nana Patekar
Boman Irani
Sanjay Kapoor
Shilpa Shetty
Sohail Khan
Antara Mali
Sameera Reddy
Rajpal Yadav
Aftab Shivdasani
Isha Koppikar
Peeya Rai Chowdhary
Revathi
Raghuvir Yadav



What's it about

Six city students take refuge in deserted ruins when stranded on a highway, and start telling each other scary stories to keep amused. The stories include: A husband trying to scare his wife; a man stuck at a creepy "healthy hotel"; a school teacher spooked by a child's homework; a housewife scared of apples;a bizarre lift on a freeway; and a college kid with an unusual power.

Analysis

'Darna Mana Hai' is the first Horror Anthology ever in Indian Cinema and is the best one compared to the other two (one being a Sequel to this movie).The movie has an ensemble cast with Stars like Saif Ali Khan,Vivek Oberoi,Nana Paterkar & Boman Irani. The Cast has some immense talent and each segment is very well acted.Coming to the segments of the movie,each segment does offer something fresh starting from Ghosts in Swamps to a Bizarre story of Apples.For the first time a movie from 'RGV' factory tries to scare the audience without the use of Sound effects and does it very convincingly.Segments like 'No Smoking' and 'Stop/move' draw inspirations from Hollywood flicks 'Psycho' and 'Click' but stay original. Prawaal Raman does a great job managing seven stories to complement each other and to maintain a good pace. 'Darna Mana Hai' paved path for a whole new sub-genre in Bollywood which only ended up with two more movies. On the whole 'Darna Mana Hai' is a must watch for every Horror fan(more or less). And there is no "Dance and songs" in this Bollywood movie!!!!!!

My Wife's Murder (2005)

Cast:

Anil Kapoor
Suchitra Krishnamoorthi
Nandana Sen
Boman Irani
Rajesh Tandon

What's it About:

Police Inspector Tejpal Randhawa is assigned to investigate the case of the dead woman whose body was recovered from a small pond. Tejpal links this matter with a missing persons' report filed by Ravi Patwardhan and his father-in-law, and subsequently has the dead woman identified as Sheela, Ravi's wife. According to Ravi, Sheela had left their home to go to visit her parents. When she did not arrive at their house 24 hours later, he himself had gone to their house, and on not being able to locate her, had accompanied his father-in-law to the nearest police station and filed a missing persons' report. Tejpal would like to conclude that Sheela was waylaid on her way to her parents' by person(s) unknown, beaten, and her body was left in the pond. But this case puzzles him, as there was no apparent motive for unknown person(s) to waylay her, as no money has been taken, and her body has not shown any signs of sexual molestation. Taking these facts into consideration, Tejpal starts to suspect Ravi. But what possible motive could Ravi, a father of two children, have in killing his wife?

Performances:

Anil Kapoor delivers one of his best performances as Ravi Patwardhan. He's got the perfect looks for a man with a nagging wife and a messy life.And the "man on run" scenes he does like the stammering and the reation after the accidental murdering of his wife are just wonderful.This performance should clearly stand in his Top 5 roles of all his 100+ movies.
Boman Irani shines as a cop. He is just made for acting. From comic roles to a serious cop no-one does the job better than him.
Suchitra as a nagging wife suits the role and Nandana Sen has only a little to offer.

Bottom Line:

My Wife's Murder is a definite oddball flick to come out from Bollywood. Jijy Philip's does a great job with his Directorial debut,it was always going to be a better Unusual flick since it came out from the Infamous RGV factory.Though rejected by the Indian crowds this movie is a dark & gripping tale of emotions of a man who accidentally kills his wife and is running to save his life for his children. 'My Wife's Murder' is a must watch if you are looking for something 'Unusual' from Bollywood and Stellar performance from Anil Kapoor.

HELL(2011)

HELL(2011)Written by: Tim Fehlbaum and Oliver Kahl.
Directed By: Tim Fehlbaum.

Starring: Hannah Herzsprung, Stipe Erceg, Angela Winkler, Michael Kranz and LisaVicari
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            "HELL" is a German post-apocalyptic thriller(No,Not about the after effects of WorldWarIII or may be it is) which tells the story of Marie and her little sister Leonie trying to Survive the apocalypse caused by the radiations of the sun,passing through a lot of obstacles including a bunch of Cannibals(They had no choice)
                                             Well the Title of the movie "HELL" which means "Bright" in German,deals with some serious issues that might happen when you Piss-off the mother of nature.The movie follows a group of survivours Marie(Hannah Herzsprung),Leonie( Lisa Vicari),Philip(Lars Eidinger) joined by Tom(Stipe Erceg) seraching for heaven which is indeed a place with some water  as per the content of the movie."HELL" is a fast-paced movie with no real time for character introduction or any backstory.The visuals are absoultely Stunning with almost zero CGI except for the digitally made Over-Bright shots.The Sun-filled barren Landscapes,The costumes(yes they completely gave me a Post apocalyptic feel),and the Climax shots are the Stand Out features of the movie.

                                                                

                               

                                               
                                               The movie is well-acted or i must say the acting was seriously good,there are no annoying characters in the movie except for the SUN.Hannah Herzsprung who plays the role of Marie,a selfless brave woman who is ready to do anything to protect her little sister does a great job,Stipe Erceg as Tom a friendly helping guy plays his part well.The remainig Cast including the Creepy Cannibal Family(resembles TCM) are decent.
                                                  Considering the small budget(for a PA movie) "HELL" is very well-made and makes way into my TOP 10 PA movies.With a Compelling and Stunning Visual treat,Engaging plot,Good acting and Ronald Emmerich(as the Executive Producer..well you don't get PA movie minus the Zombies without him..do you?) "HELL" should get a 8 out of 10 from everyone who loves survival flicks.