Phoonk

In an interview given to one of the reporters, Mr. Verma, the director of the movie "Phoonk" had warned that the film would scare the hell out of the audiences and said that it would give one sleepless nights.Now, let me put this straight, after I had watched phoonk, I can come to the absolute conclusion that Mr. Ram gopal verma is losing his way out there completely. The situation is not far when people will start ridiculing him at every launch or premiere of a movie of the horror genre.I mean, what is he doing?.Does he ever come to know what the audiences think about his horror films produced or directed by him and what the audiences actually want?.People go inside the hall and literally make fun of the characters and the movie.What chill and what thrill is he talking about? His thoughts and assumptions are going in the wrong direction.he expects us to be afraid..well we are not but instead embarrassed.

Talking about phoonk, the movie was a poor one.The storyline had nothing special and exciting.The usage of background music was pathetic according to the film sequences. The film had the typical Ram Gopal Verma elements of the typical ghostly faces and sounds and also the boring creepy atmosphere that was created. The movie had the same lame and boring atmospheric elements as that of Vaastu Shastra, Bhoot, Darna Zaroori Hai and Raat. Audiences can just whistle and tease and take the interest away during the movie.The cinematography with the camera-work was awful and disgusting.RGv wants to scare us but he needs to find new ways.Gone are the days of Raat and other ghost films like Dayyam in which he had some success.He really needs to look up to some Hollywood or Japanese movies and get some inspiration from them if he can't deliver it on his own and there is nothing wrong in it.Every good director gets inspired by Hollywood films and does copy the style because in the end what matters is the audience entertainment. If not watch Hollywood movies then read some good books or Ghost stories by some very famous authors and make a movie on that but not this. The performances given by the actors couldn't really help the story and the direction and instead made things worse. There comes a time when one begins to feel embarrassed after spending even only 30 bucks for the show after the taunts in the hall.The child artists cannot be blamed as direction was poor. The story didn't have much to really set a chilling effect.Faces made along with sounds were just boring.Mr Verma ..wake up...Do make Horror movies.. We need them but change the style. The horror genre of films are soon starting to disappear from the Indian Film Industry.We need quality stuff and if movies like phoonk and vaastu are made time and time again then we can all really stop going to movie theaters.

RGV and producer Azam Khan had promised a reward of 5 lacs to anyone who sees the movie alone in the theater. I wonder how can someone live in such a big misconception. Did they not watch the movie themselves?

It is a below average movie where you feel like laughing in the first half at the strange camera angles and sounds and ear-piercing laughter Ramu used in a failed attempt to induce horror. And I had thought this is not from the factory, therefore RGV would have directed it well.

The clichéd demonic possession, exorcism, and black magic remind you of Bhoot and Exorcist. The only good part was the kid Ahsaas Chhanna's acting.

After seeing the trailers, I was expecting much more than what I actually saw. The story line was pretty predictable and that is something you would never expect from a decent horror movie. The actors were good considering most of them were newcomers, but they would have done better with a good story line. Overall an average movie. I would rate Darna Mana Hai and Bhoot higher than Phoonk. It's sad to see that we don't see any decent horror movies in Bollywood and they tend to mess up the ones which they try to remake from a decent Hollywood movie. Though horror movies do appeal to Indian audiences, I feel they get disappointed every time they watch a Bollywood horror movie

There seems to be only two genres which are penchant to RGV, underworld and horror. He redeems himself with an "underworld" outing for every mistake he commits in an "horror".

§ Sudeep:: The new protégé'. Quite promising – bears shades of Manoj Bajpai.

§ Amruta Khanvilkar:: From Zee Cinestars Ki Khoj to RGV camp, she has come a long way.

§ Ashish Channa:: The kids are watching too much horror programs and it clearly shows.

§ Ashwini Kalsekar:: Scary portrayal but at times over the top (and a bit amusing in few scenes!). Same for the actor who played her husband.

§ The lady who played the Mother's part was quite natural .

§ Lillette Dubey & KK Raina:: Characterization was a bit skewed, inadequately fleshed out.

§ Zakir Hussain:: The star performer and carries his role quite effectively.

Background score is not too loud – thankfully.

The movie bears RGV stamp all over… and the weird camera angles come as a part of the package.

Raat, Bhoot, Darling, Vaastushastra & the Darna series - reminds me of the story of the spider who refuses to give up. RGV is enamoured by Alfred Hitchcock/ Stanley Kubrick who merely used narration and background score as tools to play with the minds of the audience and create a horror sans blood and gore . Phoonk is yet another attempt to set a similar benchmark on the home ground.

What are you waiting for? Bring on Shabri too..... we have the gut to digest that as well.

Its not so scary. A lot of hype was given to this movie because of the contest in which the participant had to view the movie alone in the theater. A strictly one time watch on a DVD.

I'm not going to go much into the story as it is simply about a non- believer being haunted by the supernatural and his family.

Performances are good. Background Score, Visuals, camera angles etc were supposed to play a major role in a movie which was made to scare the audience. However, all of these were strictly OK.

Some Facts Related to the Movie: There was even another contest where participants were supposed to submit their real life experience horror story. This was all on the Phoonk website www.phoonk.in which is now non-existent. However the sad thing about the second contest was that the winners were intimidated over the email but never announced on the website and were also officially never given the price money. I'm one of them.

All in all a one time watch movie which doesn't completely fail to impress as a horror movie.