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Posted: 19 years ago
Film: "Vaastu Shastra". Starring Sushmita Sen, Chekrvarthy, Ahsaas Channa, Peeya Roy Choudhry, Purab Kohli, Rasika Joshi and Sayaji Shinde. Directed by Sourabh Usha Narang.

Warning - if you get scared in the movies, then stay away from "Vaastu Shastra".

It's arguably the most terrifying Bollywood horror film ever conceived and brought to the screen with an ingrained integrity that diminishes both rational explanations and irrational fear to a mound of indistinguishable afterthoughts, applicable only if you overcome your nerve wracking perceptions of the sheer visual terror the film creates.

Compared with "Vaastu Shatra", Ram Gopal Varma's "Bhoot" was child's play. Also, "Bhoot" was more leisurely and casual in its spine chilling aspirations, while "Vaastu Shastra" is relentlessly horrific in its implications of what demoniacal discoveries lie beneath the tranquil surface of a seemingly normal household.

While in most horror films, including Hollywood's most celebrated ones like "The Exorcist" and "Omen", or the "Friday The 13th series", the terror is imposed from the outside and allowed to seep into the characters and plot. "Vaastu Shastra" moves in the opposite direction.

The appalling terror originates from within the given milieu and the rounded believable characters who occupy the stunningly ominous spaces - and makes its way outwards to the frames.

Before we move further with the frights, let's straightway congratulate the debutant director for assembling a crew that allows his flights of foreboding to take wings.

Apart from a terribly overdone soundtrack in the first half (why must the sound effects be used so arbitrarily to scare viewers when there's so much of the genuine stuff, and so well thought out, later in the plot?), there isn't a single aspect in the narration that doesn't grab us.

Sachin K. Krishn's camerawork is eye-catching without being glamorous. The frames create a feverish flush of fear without overdoing the sleek exteriors of the bungalow where the horror unsheathes in glowing purple shades.

While the first half gives us, and the characters, a chance to catch our breath, the second half pulls out all stops to unleash a furious terror across the plot's sweltering scenario.

The ghosts, so far seen in fleeting silhouettes, come out of the closet en masse. They crowd the narrative with their muffled but brash demands, make what was so far only a whispered glance in horror films, and on occasion afford us a full-frontal view of the other world in all its ghoulish glory.

There are no benign supernatural elements. The mean spirits infest "Vaastu Shastra" and finally overpower the narration to the point where director Narang seems to take the horror genre way beyond the prescribed borders of thrills and entertainment.

Ironically the film's most outstanding aspect - its willingness and ability to take the horror genre beyond the permissible limits - is also its gravest shortcoming.

Posted: 19 years ago

 

Hi

I just watched the flick.

It was good right up to the very end. Very absorbing. But I was left with an unsatisfied feeling.😭

Posted: 19 years ago

ABUI look at the poor bache, he sure looking horried yaar.😕

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