Gehrayee : A decent and subtle horror film
A decent horror film? A horror film – subtle?
Is it possible and even if it is possible, will the film still be attractive and appealing?
One film does this magic.
In Hindi cinema, horror films mean either typical products of Ramsey Brothers or Ram Gopal Verma’s factory products and few other efforts by other filmmakers here and there like Vikram Bhatt’s 1920 and Madhvan starrer 13 B.
Ram Gopal Varma’s last horror entry Phoonk was loosly based on (/inspired by) a sensible film made by Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje in 1980.
Gehrayee was the film. This film could easily be said as only sensible and good film ever came out of hindi cinema where subject has dealt with black magic, spirit, supernatural powers and ghost etc. This is the only film which does not take refuge in technical gimicks to falsely terrorise the audiences rather it goes down deeply into the psychology of the characters. Inspite of being quite a low budget film, this is highly devoted to the genre and it does not try to play the tricky games with the audience.
No tricky camera work is there, no swift movements are there and camera does not even try to portray some particular character in a wrong manner so that audiences are given a fake illusion that this person is the culprit. Film goes ahead in quite a subtle manner.
Realistic touch is quite high in the film. Film looks real and shows in a way as it can happen to somebody in real life and how real people may react when come across something which defies their understanding of not to recognize any supernatural thing.
Many things happen in the life of human being and science is unable to provide any definite answer but because science has taught not to believe whatever is not proved scientifically so people live in a confused state. Science is also followed blindly like a superstition by many people.
For those who are involved deeply into the scientific reaserach few things may be fine but what about those people who even have never come across the very early and primary type of theories of modern science?
These people simply rely on what newspapers feed them or what others tell them. They always have to listen to others because more successful people are shouting at them that whatever they are telling them is the right as they had read it in their 10th standard book.
To listen about supernatural powers or to read about them in books or to see films based on fictions are different thing but when confused people living in a confused time come across something which they can not define and understand then things really can disturb the families of people suffering from unknown things.
Those who do not believe in any undefined powers will naturally seek the shelter of doctors and doctors will rely on the available knowledge of personality disorder or psychological problems defined by some area of human psychology.
Other people may not say anything before the person telling about problem of his family member but after he is gone, people may comment,” his family member is going mad”.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Capitalistic and consumeristic approach does not allow people to consider the lives of poor people serving the riches all through their lives.
If a person has been doing hard work on a land owned by a rich man and starts treating the land with a great love and treats the land as a very important part of his life and even does not treat badly any living creatures living in that premises and rather respects even a snake as the caretaker of the land then he can be devasted if rich person asks him to leave the place as he has sold the land to other owner who would make an industry here.
It is not about the alternative arrangement done by the owner of the land for his job at a different place and it is more the matter of his emotional attachment with the land, trees on this land, his hard work done in making this land as a green paradise where birds are singing the song all the day and different kinds of flowers are blossomed and different kinds of fruits are flourishing on the trees and different kinds of vegetables are existing on and inside the land. This land has become his life and selling this land may carry him at the door of death.
A young man brings his lover to his home so that she can meet with his family. His teen ager sister takes his lover to her room to show the photo album etc. After some minutes his lover comes out in a visibly disturbed mode and she insists on going back to home as soon as possible.
It is not usual in films to see the teen ager sister making sexual advances to her elder brother. All the family members are sitting in a room and son gets up to take the bath and all of a sudden his younger sisters gets up from her chair and takes her brother in her arms and starts saying dialogues which a prostitute may say to lure her customer. Everybody is shocked to see this lewd behaviour of a teen ager girl. Brother is trying to push away his sister but she is clinging to him more tightly.
Whole family is playing carrom board and all of a sudden daughter starts accusing her father for her sexual exploitation and not as a young girl but as some other woman.
Her mother is stunned to listen this. Daughter is taken to doctor who has only one option to treat her, electric shock.
Gehrayee explores the mental torture of the family when daughter starts suffering from a disorder in her behaviour. Father takes her to doctor and daughter complains about doctor’s rude behaviour. Brother and mother listens to their old servant that girl is suffering from ghost problem.
There is a clash between father and son over the girl’s problem.
A tantrik is asked to help but it makes situation even worse and girl is saved from his evil efforts.
There is a mystry behind girl’s problem.
Padmini Kolhapure had given an outstanding performance in the role of a teen ager suffering girl. She was very young and still could portray the changing and complex behaviour of her character very well.
In the media film was in news because of a nude scene of Padmini Kolhapure.
Dr Shreeram Lagoo as the father of girl, Indrani Mukharjee as the mother of girl and Anant Nag as brother of the girl were quite good.
Amrish Puri in a small role of the tantrik proved again that great actors don’t need hours of screen space and they can leave the long lasting impact even in a few minutes role.
Film’s USPs are the relience on the story, characterization, psychological dynamics of the characters and direct take on the probelm and absence of technical gimmicks. Film does not try to create false fear because of the use of technology and
problems and emotions of the characters do that job.
A simple take makes Gehrayee a remarkable hindi film in the genre of ghost and black magic etc.
Asrani used to say in the ad. of Sylvania Laxman : Ek Naam jo Ujala Laye
BPL, perhaps was first ever advertisement which Amitabh Bachchan had done through his corporate venture ABCL.
Focus of the ad was on the idea to search a brand which keeps international value and Amitabh Bachchan endorses BPL that it is one brand which has that international value.
In the crowd of B and C grade horror flicks in hindi cinema Gahrayee shines like a star and keeps waiving the flag of a different and distinguished brand name even after 29 years of its first release.
Tags: 13 B, 1920, Amitabh Bachchan, Anant Nag, Aruna Raje, Dr Shreeram Lagoo, Gehrayee, Indrani Mukharjee, Madhvan, Padmini Kolhapure, Phoonk, ram gopal varma, Rita Bhaduri, Vikas Desai, vikram bhatt
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
a very intresting film…and good write up
@James,
Yes quite interesting, Thanks
Thanks a lot for unearthing one more movie (for me) and that too in the not so popular horror genre. Haven’t heard of it prior to this post.
@jahanpanah,
Hope you get to see it soon.
Thanks RK for writing so eloquently about this film. I have some bad childhood memories with this film. I couldnt stay alone for an entire week after seeing this film. The best thing was that the film had a story unlike horror movies which are more of shock driven. Story, that seemed so real and which is why it stays with you even after the film is over. Great write-up!
@Neeraj Ghaywan,
Thanks. True, about the film. Oridnary take gives it extra edge.
A very good movie.Saw it long time back.The write up brought back those scenes for me.
Till now I had not met any person who had seen it.Good to see such movies discussed here.
This is what makes PFC unique.
@Crime-Master-Gogo,
In archive of PFC you may find many such films covered by PFC authors about which one may always carry an impression perhaps he is the only person who has seen this film:)
Thanks for comment
I have heard a lot about this film.But I could not find it in any dvd store.I really want to watch this one.
@ANINDYA,
As Shemaroo owns the DVD so you must get it by little more efforts.
I remember watching what I think was the last scene of the movie. Always wanted to watch the whole movie but didn’t know what the name was. Thanks!
@Neeraja,
You recall the film only by watching the last scene. Nice impression of movie on you. Hope you get to see it soon.
Can be said the Indianized version of the The Exorcist.. not an effective one in the final verdict.. still the talented duo of Aruna-Vikas never let it go in the Ramsey direction and were sincere to the attempt..
one of the rare outings of LP-Gulzar-Kishore together that produced a gem of a song (unfortunately never got released on tapes)!
kuchh paro.n se halke hote hai.n
barso.n ke tale chalte chalte, bhaari bharkam ho jate hai.n
kuchh bhaari bharkam barf ke se
barso.n ke tale galte galte, Halke phulke ho jate hai.n
rishte bas rishte hote hai.n
kuchh ik pal ke kuchh do pal ke
rishte bas rishte hote hai.n
naam hote hai rishto ke,
kuchh rishte naam ke hote hai.n
rishta wo agar mar jaye bhi ,
bas naam se jeena hota hai
rishte bas rishte hote hai.n
@Pavan,
Cant recall properly where but perhaps this song is available somewhere on some online listening portal.
Ditto Anindya
Ahh,I just picked up a copy of this movie from Shemaroo as i’d heard a lot about it…Thanks a lot for the build up,now i have to watch it :D
@Vikram,
Hope you liked it.
Rk sir, I have sent this post link to Mr.Vikas Desai (We call him VD sir). Lets see, if he has the time, maybe we can have an interaction on the making of etc. He is a huge knowledge-house! And a very very positive person!
@Srinivas,
What is he doing these days? and Aruna Raje?
Any new film under progress?
had watched this movie long time back on DD / Zee Cinema. brought back the chill-factor once again. this movie was certified A, and I used to wonder how padmini wud hv watched the movie herself upon its release, sicne she was a minor then…
@Satyendra Jha,
It is an interesting scenario. Padmini K can say but perhaps she might not have felt much as she had passed through the making process piece by piece.
But it is really an interesting scenario for actors appearing in Action and horror films because they know very well how they had completed a scene and on screen scenes look great stunt scenes in action films or scarry scenes in horror films. Emotional scene still can create illusion for them and they can be swayed away by the emotional quotient and there making process may not affect theirt present emotional need/state etc.
Got the DVD recently from netflix. Frankly, I could not go beyond the first fifteen minutes. Having done some bit of acting myself, what really bothered me was the pathetic wooden acting from the cast. Specially, the mother (Indrani Mukherjee) and the son (Anant Nag). It seemed they were just mouthing out lines from the script, at times without even the minimum pauses. And the guy playing the farmer … he was really a very third-grade actor — the way he kept saying :”Zameen ko bech diya …apni maa ko bech diya….” — it reminded me of all my painful childhood experiences on Friday nights on doordarshan. Even Padmini Kohlapure seemed good only as long as she was not speaking out her lines. Only, Dr. Lagoo seemed to be actually going beyond just giving out his lines.
I was very enthusiastic on hearing about this movie which no one around me seemed to have heard before, and I was so badly disappointed that I couldn’t help commenting here. Really sorry I couldn’t agree with the others on this movie.
@The crusader,
If you had seen the film completely then it was a possibility that perhaps you would not have minded the awkwardness of first 15-25 minutes to this extent. It may happen not only with many off beat films but films of commercial category also that first few minutes create a repulsion but many a times whole film creates an overall positive impression.
May you get courage to watch the film completely some day
You missed Amrish Puri etc
I too watched the movie recently (and thanks to this post, I came to know about it). Overall a fairly decent movie dealing with supernatural things but lacks the horror elements. Although few dialogues are cliched (may be due to 80s) and stereotypical acting from the characters as largely seen in the movies of yore but the film as a whole was satisfying experience.
And in terms of hindi movies this may be the best horror film I’ve seen, prior to it was RGV’s Raat. Woh Kaun Thi is on the top for me but it’s not a true horror movie so it’s left out.