Le Jeu maudit

This started off so well with an interesting premise. This film was confused and lost it's way. Some good FX and a reasonable cast was let down by a poor story.

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

Two teenage girls, Ria (Subholina Sen) and Payel (Ananya Biswas), meet up with Pele (Soumendra Bhattacharya) and his brother Babai (Ranodeep Bose) for a night on the town, after which they plan to find a hotel for some casual sex. This being India, however, where sex before marriage is a big no-no, they are unable to find anyone willing to rent them a room, so the horny foursome hide in a shopping mall until after hours instead. Once the lights all go off, the teens find themselves face to face with a weird elderly couple who entice them into playing an ancient, evil version of the popular board game Ludo that feeds on blood.

Not being well versed in Indian horror flicks, I am unsure as to whether a shopping mall is a popular setting for such movies, but it's the second in a row for me, my previous Indian horror experience being the absolutely lousy Darr @ The Mall (2015). Ludo isn't any better. Darr's highlight was an energetic song and dance routine (which says a lot about the rest of the film); Ludo's strongest point is its occasionally rather nasty gore, which includes eyeball gouging, gut ripping and tongue tearing. But both films suffer from a plot that makes very little sense.

Ludo's 'Hellraiser meets Jumanji' evil board game is a neat idea that offers plenty of scope for scary moments, but co-directors Qaushiq Mukherjee and Nikon fail to make the most of their concept, instead offering up lots of random creepy imagery without much of a coherent story-line; when the narrative is so confusing, it's hard to engage the viewer, and even harder to scare them silly. Worse yet, the second half of the film changes tack completely, forgetting about the teenagers to focus on the backstory of the game and its original victims, resulting in a horribly disjointed mess of a film that makes for a very frustrating experience.

I am fan of the foreign horror genre, so needless to say i was excited to view this film. Foreign horror films often contain more in depth mythos and psychological scares than the mainstream films. The idea of this film was very interesting yet failed to deliver. The pacing was too slow and scattered and despite the typical gore, Ludo failed to grip me. The scenes combined with the soundtrack felt solely for shock value ( a la Martyrs sans story line).

The first act was, albeit too long, supposed to flesh out the characters. Which it did. It gave the viewer a sense of the environment and what is culturally accepted and not. Then, it switched from being a 'slow-burn'into a music video that bombards your ears with industrial type beats and seizure inducing lights. From here you are magically whisked away to a non-nonsensical time shifting quick explanation of the cursed game complete with gore and not much else.

To say more is really irrelevant. Many will disagree, but if you are curious in viewing this, it really wouldn't hurt skipping some scenes and just skimming through the rest to arrive at a flat ending.

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.