13-B – Scare me more!!
We have a great Indian formula when it comes to horror movies.
1. There is always a back story.
2. The ghost or ghosts always are never felt right away and anything spooky happening is never taken seriously by most of the characters save some – usually protagonists
3. There are always some characters around with some spooky character traits for the director, cameraman + music director to indulge in cheap thrills.
4. Dogs are the best paranormal investigators
5. Whenthe central plot is about to be uncovered and the steam begins to build, there will be a detour scenes for the poor smokers to have a fad.
6. After smokers have returned to the seats, the director will wrap up the movie in next 30 mins – making the non smokers wonder ‘This could have been done 30 mins back’.
7. The back story I mentioned in the bullet #1 will have some aged character of the current story in some ridiculous wig doing something to an innocent girl who will be the ghost that haunts.
8. Invariably the central protagonist will be a rational ‘non-believer’ who will revisit his/her belief in the end.
I saw years ago a horror movie called ‘13 aam number veedu’ (another substandard south indian movie) that satisfies all the 8 cliche’s I mentioned above and yet it scared the shit out of me. That was because, the ghost in question was not justified in its unreasonable ‘activities’ in the present for something that happened to it in distant past. It still was a ghost and according to the director had no bloody business in our world and had to be kicked out and a great tug of war between the priest and the ghost begins (clearly ripped off ‘Poltergheist’- I new of that later). 13-B ‘Sab khairiyat’ peters out in the end purely because it asks too much of tears to be shed to the ghosts of the past.
Why the heck am I starting the post with a criticism of this movie and a comparison to an old world relic of a ‘B- grade’ horror movie which was directed by someone harmlessly named ‘Baby’? That is because of the disappointment of the finish of the movie. A movie that begins curiously by making fun at RGV style of film making. Unusual angles of camera and shaking camera soon settles in to a smooth narrative and the unusualness of the house soon begins to churn at your stomach. Madhavan playing out of his comfort zone as a shaken protagonist in a horror movie uses his expressive eyes (and eye brows as well :-)) and body language (bharkhurdar) to good effect. For PC sreeram too – this is a new genre and he has underplayed and aided director without overshadowing – he gets his freedom in the flashback sequences and does really well. The supporting cast including poonam dhillon and deepak dobriyal are effective in their support, while Neetu chandra does play an ideal foil for Madhavan in the initial scenes rather well. One glaring eye sore was lack of any scope for the elder brother character. The guy is in the house and has very little part to play in the proceedings and seemed to be included to achieve some sort of weird symmetry with the ghosts and to provide some perverted CG pleasure in the climax. Where director slips in the proceedings is when he starts employing the cliche list mentioned in th beginning – not necessarily in the same order.
I should however raise a toast to the flashback sequences shot in Black and white. It is a guilty pleasure to watch some south Indian small screen and film artistes (Sampath of Paruthi veeran, Chennai -600028 etc., comes in a cameo and so does Meera vasudevan of Thanmaatra) in a mainstream hindi film. One more question to the director I got the suspense fairly early as the clues were too obvious for me a bit more obfuscation was needed.
The central premise of ‘Ghost in the box’ was interesting, however not entirely new. To a public that pays a ‘medium’ who can make a ghost move a krosene stove to communicate with ‘relatives’, the concept is at best ‘interesting’ but not scary. The spookiness was all there and the interesting title scene was well conceived and novel – however it seemed that the intention was merely to make the ’sanitised chick flick’ audience to gasp here or there. There could have been a more generous adoption of ’scare tactics’ by the director and I am pretty sure that the ‘A’ certificate was requested by the producer and granted more so for the song sequence more than anything. Also pray what was the motive behind a scary movie where the total number of scared people in the story was 1?
Also what was the idea behind the ghot playing ‘da vinci code’ with Maddy in the bathroom ceiling and blood droplets on the floor?
Much like comedy movies relying on the number of jokes, the singular USP of horror movies is the amount of scary moments and that is far less in this ghostly adventure.
PS: I watched this movie online by renting it out from Big Flix.com. I have been sufficiently scared by so many horror movies on computer and small screen – There have been instances where I have been caught watching a horror movie with my eyes closed!!
Tags: 13 B, Big Flix, Madhavan, Neetu Chandra, P.C.Sreeram
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I don’t think 13B can be classified as a conventional horror film like Bhoot..Director’s intention was for audience to feel for the character of Madhavan,he who alone among many people in house feels something is wrong..If he adopted RGV tactics to scare audience then he would have been accused of copying RGV..So 13B is more of a suspense thriller than horror film..It worked for me because I could identify with Madhavan’s character and his helplessness..It was a honest film not playing to gallery with cheap scare tactics..
I agree with the point that the movie was very honest and the execution was neat – yet the USP of the movie is touted to be the fear factor which was greatly missing.
I mean if you take a subject with ghosts playing a central role – it either is a parody or scifi adventure like ‘frighteners’ or a horror flick like ‘Ring’, Ramsay movies – I feel there is no middle ground here – like a family suspense thriller with ghosts.
Playing to gallery in a horror movie or scary movie is not a cheap scare tactic – but a necessary ingredient in my opinion. If the genre is suspense thriller, then the paranormal agents need not have been ghosts with a back story.
I mean in the genre war even the best have to submit or dare to elevate(at their own cost) – When a spielberg handles Indy movies – the treatment is always over the top and catering to the fans of indy series. When a tarentino takes over the horror genre – it gains his flavour but still stays true to the genre – providing guttural satisfaction with display of blood, gore and skin. not everyone can(or need to) do a Nolan when it comes to a chosen genre.
@ aditya – I am just making a joke that the movie was not as fear provoking to be given a ‘A’ certificate. I am not stating a fact here.
@Aditya – I am not denying the craft behind the movie and i am not equating it to a Ramsay bros movie. My grouse is that it was not scary enough and if you say that it is inspired by Japanese and korean horror flicks, I have seen my share of japanese horror movies – this one doesnt send a chill up my weak spine like a ‘Ringu’ or ‘ Ju On’.
It is at the best atmospheric suspense thriller. And the suspense was not too difficult to decode either.
I saw the movie. Or almost. Couldnt stomach the movie so walked out during the climax. I’m sure, if i had stayed i would have died of prolonged coma of the brain. The only reason i didnt walk out during interval, was because it was raining outside:-)
I saw it & found it to be a more than decent effort for it avoids most of the cliches for an Indian movie of this genre.
Jai- btw Meera Vasudevan has done Hindi movies like Rules -Pyar Ka Superhit Formula,Chain kuli ki main kuli, Thodi Pyar Thodi Magic etc.
i disagree with the post. for me it an engrossing fare. there is difference between ’scary’ and ’spooky’ and and ‘repulsive’ and this film tends to go for ’spooky’ and occasionally ‘repulsive’. it was a good story couple with fresh treatment.
Good movie.