Ludo

Like watching 2 separate movies! The 1st some sort of low budget hand cam slice of life from India, which was fairly interesting, but the characters were hollow and pointless. The 2nd was extremely interesting, a story about a game, similar to the game box in Hellraiser, which begs you to solve it, and if you don't, your body is forfeit, if you do your soul is. The board, like the box mesmerizes you, and you must play. If the 2nd half was more developed and a movie on its own, it would be a GOOD movie, but the first half, and the end, which happens in LITERAL FLASHES, and up close shots of faces, so you can't tell which of the 3 women you're looking at, what time you're looking at, it RUINS the end, because you DON'T know what happened!!! BOO!!! I even went back and watched it in slow mo, and if what I THINK happened happened, it would make no sense, because it would mean things in the past would make things in the future different....

Watch if you dare, because it will only leave you confused.

I am a huge fan of Q. Huge is an understatement but Ludo did not meet even 20% of my expectation. When I found Ludo was on Netflix I was elated and I spent my Thanksgiving afternoon glued to the screen. I have never felt so disappointed. Rii is as usual amazing but whoever did her voice for the movie ( I assume it was meant to be a Sakchunni - Bengali married woman's spirit) sounded ridiculous, raspy and horrendous. The four main characters are shallow and by shallow I mean not an ounce of depth. I grew up in Kolkata and I can vouch for the fact that we don't use so much of swear words in our daily vocabulary. I Know impressionable men and women feel that using swear words would be cool but it was a bit of an overkill.

Tilottama Shome as the Shaman could have been explored much much more. I was left with a palate of bile after the movie. It could have been so so much better had some of the background story been omitted and stress put on the present day scenario of the Shaman's existence. Over all, I think it is a mess.

First the positives: I actually sat through it all. Yes indeed I did, I kid you not. And while you may laugh at that notion, wait until the movie starts and the amateurish nature takes over. Now maybe you have a soft spot for that and there would be nothing wrong with that. It's just a shame, that instead of relishing in certain aspects, the movie tries to be something it can not be. Budget wise, story wise and anything to do with wise/wisdom at all.

There is blood, there is almost nudity (though you could argue that there is a lot of skin shown for a movie from India) and there is horror. Though the horror aspect may come from a different place that you think. The make up isn't that bad though and the wicked, if completely mental ending almost is a saving grace. Then again, I'm not sure many will make it until then ... pun intended

Me and Indian cinema have not had the best history together, though I've watched many I could only name a few and generally even those I didn't really like. I think the best I ever watched was Vicky Donor (2012) and even that was a remake of a French Canadian film.

However I put my fears aside and gave this a chance because I liked the sound of the concept. Based on the description it sounded like it would fall into a sub-genre that I love, that it would be something in the vein of SAW (2004). Rest assured it's not that kind of movie at all.

It tells the story of two young couples who after a night on the town are looking for a hotel room to have some private fun in. Struggling to find one they instead break into a mall only to fall foul of a mysterious old couple.

It's a hard movie to categorize, it's rather an odd creature but what I can say with confidence is that it's awful. No really, this is even a low 2/10.

Though it starts interestingly enough it quickly descends into confusion as soon as the plot reveals itself. It's just not engaging, the story makes very little sense, far too much of it is presented in the form of flashbacks and narration and ultimately it goes nowhere.

Once again Indian cinema proves that it just isn't for me and conned me into watching another dire effort with promises of something it didn't deliver.

The Good:

Starts off interestingly enough

The Bad:

Stock screams

Plot is awful

Ridiculous random imagery

I personally love watching horror movies of all types, especially if they are foreign movies. With that being said, I don't think Ludo is a film for everyone. I thought this movie was going to be about zombies when I quickly skimmed through the summary and all I could remember was "shopping mall" and "gruesome".

The film starts off with a couple of teenagers trying to get laid. They wound up in a shopping mall when they couldn't find a hotel room for the night. As the couples' begin to get into the good stuff, an old man and woman come out of no where. They get the teens to play an evil board game with them. That's when things get really crazy. I'm not going to say what exactly happens but that the film goes into more depth of the origins of the evil board game.

OK, so the concept of the film was interesting and the acting wasn't too bad. There were some scenes that I thought were pretty cool/creepy. The story started off pretty simple and then it just felt like it was trying to do TOO much. As the movie progresses, it focuses entirely on the evil game that I just kind of forgot about the teens. The special effects were pretty good in my opinion but it was also too much for me.

Overall I enjoyed it as a late night horror movie to watch but I'd only watch it once. The story could have been so much better. It's a different feel of horror and that's what I liked about it. So in the end...I like it and I don't like it.