Raat

Normally, Indian films are anything but subtle. The horror films are even more crude, so it is a treat to watch something as well-made as this. Varma's direction is tight and stylistic, and the movie maintains suspense throughout this tale of the supernatural. Revathi's acting is especially fine. Recommended.

Minnie Sharma (Revathi) and her family have just moved to a new town. Her sister and sister's husband died in a car accident, and she's left taking care of their young child, "Bunty" (Master Atit), in conjunction with her parents and their "manservant", Narayan (Chinna). As Raat opens, Minnie is having nightmares about being isolated as some strange, mysterious force chases her. Eventually these nightmares cross over into daydreams/hallucinations. When she goes out on a date with Deepak (Kushant), she ends up in the woods by herself, and her nightmares threaten to become real.

Raat is a quality Indian Psychological Horror/Thriller, marred by some looseness in the plot. Die-hard horror fans may also be occasionally distracted by pegging where the film is derivative of popular western horror films. The performances are fine, with Revathi standing out in particular, and the technical aspects are good, even though the version I watched--the Eros International DVD version for the UK and the United States (and other English-speaking areas)--was made from a very questionable print of the film. The image is frequently dirty and scratched, the soundtrack is slightly out of sync with the video, the subtitle timing is often off, and there is a lot of artifacting on the DVD transfer, which also wasn't properly divided into chapters. Of course for these technical issues, I do not subtract any points, as I'm rating the content of the film imagining an ideal print. It was a shame that the transfer couldn't have been better, as Teja's cinematography seems like it would otherwise be very attractive.

I enjoyed Raat the most in its opening scenes. Writer/director Ram Gopal Varma begins right in the middle of a horror sequence that could very well be the climax. Minnie steps off of a bus by herself and is soon running from some unseen force through a somewhat rundown looking neighborhood, which is eerily void of other humans. I would guess that the creepiness of such "ghost town" isolation might hit native Indians even harder, as it's probably unusual to find such a deserted town, and especially unusual for someone to exit a bus without being met by family or friends. The scene goes on long enough that it's a surprise when she finally wakes up. The first section of the film is primarily focused on these bizarre lapses into an alternate, desolate reality. To an extent, I later wished that Varma had kept the whole film in this same mode, as it was done so excellently--it was on firm "10 out of 10" ground throughout the first section. But the subsequent material was entertaining enough, even if the meandering and eventual slight lack of logic for the menace caused me to lower my score a bit.

Varma wears his horror influences on his sleeve throughout Raat. The beginning has some strong resemblances to the first two Evil Dead films (1981 and 1987)--this is especially noticeable in the interesting hand-held cinematography representing the evil force. Shortly after, Raat takes a turn towards an Amityville Horror (1979)-styled haunted house flick, complete with the sound of masses of flies (and this occurs periodically throughout the film). Later, there are elements of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the Exorcist (1973), and even Friday the 13th (1980)--I suppose we could say that if you're going to "steal", steal from the best. If you dislike strong influences and you know those precursor films, this might be a cue to avoid Raat. I don't mind influence; Varma weaves his disparate sources together adeptly.

The music, by Mani Sharma (an obvious influence on the main character's name in the film), can be a bit uneven. At times it is almost comically over-exaggerated, with very prominent "cheesy" late 1970s/1980s synthesizer tonalities. At other times, it's almost sublime, perfectly atmospheric. I was especially fond of the way Sharma and Varma incorporated traditional Indian wedding music during a crucial, "big turning point" scene. Other than that, there is not a lot of traditional music in the film, and there are no musical song/dance numbers--a characteristic that has become somewhat common in Indian horror, even if it is very unusual otherwise.

Horror fans should not expect to see a lot of gore or special effects. When such effects do occur, they come off a bit cheesy. So it's better that Varma tends to stick with subtlety, suggestion and reaction to experienced/observed horrors. He easily handles this more understated style.

Finally, even though Raat eventually ends up in more off-the-wall supernatural territory, much of the film can be taken as a metaphor for schizophrenia--in fact, Varma goes to some lengths to show us a literal parallel while engaging in the metaphor at the same time. Minnie's early "hallucinations" and her later "possessions" tend to be accompanied by catatonia. She has olfactory hallucinations as well. She loses track of Bunty and lets him remain in unusual isolation when she's supposed to be watching him. She becomes anti-social and violent, and so on. Even the more supernatural material works well for this interpretation, as mental disorders such as schizophrenia were misdiagnosed as "possession by demons" and similar claims throughout history. I wouldn't say that Varma intended the whole film as only a metaphor for schizophrenia, but that's obviously one of his intentions, along with simply telling a good horror/thriller yarn.

I have recently been revisiting Bollywood because I felt I had been neglecting such a large and prestigious industry as a film fan. I first saw Raat with English subs on TV when I was on vacation in Bangalore, India, and was impressed by it, so impressed, in fact, that I went to the video store nearby and bought a VCD of the film. Years later, after much searching, I found a very scratched CD in my collection with no cover and it was "Raat", so I decided to watch it.

Ram Gopal Varma is apparently something of a legend over in Bollywood, but I've only seen two other films of his (Sarkar, the Indian remake of "The Godfather", and another very good horror film, "Kaun", which I have fond memories of), so I can't really vouch for that, but his direction here is stylish and he sets the mood perfectly. The movie itself reminded me a lot of several different Hollywood films, the possession scenes were reminiscent of "The Exorcist" and the majority of the opening half hour eerily reminiscent of "Evil Dead", but it has enough respect for those classics not to blatantly copy them, and it's successful because it learned from the very best, and applied it damn well.

9/10

Raat review :

The Ramsays dominated the 80s so much that horror genre got synonymous with them. Scary movies meant Anirudh Agarwal with a mud pack on his face, a bath happy heroine and a religious symbol or idol which turned savior in the end.

Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) tried to do something different with Raat - a film having none of the above elements - which paved the way for the future horror movies in Bollywood.

Revathy played Mini who gets possessed when her family shifts to a new house. Without relying on a hideous looking ghost, RGV evoked tremendous fear in minds of viewer through effective camera angles and sound effects. Revathy was outstanding in the lead role and she reportedly, faced lot of anxiety issues during the filming.

Om Puri's tantrik was memorable too. He only appears at the end but makes his strong presence felt. "Darkness never vanishes, it's only diminished by light in a particular radius" is his interesting explanation to the paranormal.

Raat was released with much publicised 70MM print and 6 track stereophonic sound at Mumbai's New Excelsior cinema. Taking cue from a stunt employed by certain Hollywood film, the makers had parked an ambulance outside New Excelsior for any exigency emerging to weak hearted viewers while watching the film.

Sadly, the film didnt work at the box office but later caught on in the video circuit to emerge a cult classic. In one of his later interviews, RGV admitted that the publicity of film should've focused on its good content rather than the 70MM stereo. He remade Raat (with minor changes) as Bhoot in 2003 which became a super hit. But Raat will always remain special as the one which ushered in a new change in Hindi horror.

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

This is one of the best horror movies and the milestone of Indian Cinema. Ram Gopal Verma is really a genius. Wonderful cast with wonderful acting. Om Puri is a well reputed theater artist of Indian Cinema. RAAT is the story of a family that moves into a haunted house, and the eventual possession of their daughter Minnie.

At the releasing time of RAAT people were fed up with Ramsay brothers types movies which contains several sex scenes, some dirty faces and some Haunted Hawelis but this movie gave audience new experience.

You will not see any high class special effects in this movie but the sound effect and acting are out of the world. Hats off to Ramu. I will give 10/10 to this. A must watch.