There are horror movies which offer mainly jumpscares and there are some which will be haunting even after the movie. And then there's this new wave called RangiTaranga – which offers brilliant jump-scares and leaves you haunting even after you come out of the theatre. Not many movies can do that. RangiTaranga doesn't stick to one genre. Director Anup bhandari has played with the genres according to the neatly written and twisted but brilliant screenplay.
The good news is Rangitaranga satisfies all kinds of audience be it frolic seeking janata or experience seeking world cinema followers. While normal audience can soak in the brilliant BGM and the creepy scares with frequent twists, the latter who can appreciate the technicality and the writing of the movie! There are actually more than one story to this movie. The main plot is about the haunted house 'Kamaruttu' and the theories and mysteries surrounding it! Like other movies even this had a similar format but interesting thing about this is the premise. It's surely something new to our audience and there's a lot of detail involved. And the director establishes some really good things and characters in the premise that keeps you thinking. Another story is about Gautham(Nirup bhandari) and Indu(Radhika Chetan) who come to Kamaruttu for a different purpose. And they have their own dark past to worry about. And the final arc is about Sandhya(Avanthika Shetty) looking for a writer called Anashku, who also heads to the same place.
The purposes of these main characters, the mystery surrounding the place, their dark past and how these arcs connect together forms the main crux of the plot. Anup Bhandari has cautiously tried to narrate all these stories with a gripping screenplay and he has pulled it off brilliantly. Right from the first scene, the movie starts to cast its spell on the audience.The first half is mainly about introducing the characters,establishing the premise, providing clues and ending with a great twist while the Second half caters to revelations and connecting all the loose ends! Frequent twists keep the viewers intriguing till the end.
Some scenes are really spine chilling, thanks to the amazing BGM by Ajaneesh Loknath who is definitely the third hero to this movie.Technically the movie is just perfect and they have not compromised anywhere. Cinematographers Lance Kaplan and David Williams should take a bow. The light setting, the camera angles are different and it uplifts the movie to a whole new level. People often confuse rich visuals with richly spent visuals but this movie defines what rich visuals and cinematography is. And the scares wouldn't have been this extremely effective if it wasn't for the editing! It is perfectly done most of the time! The pure Kannada lyrics for all the songs by Anup Bhandari is one more plus point to this movie. They are mostly situational.
Coming to the performances, Nirup Bhandari looks good and for a debut he does a good job but should have done better in a few sequences. The two lead actresses are another great find after Nabha(Vajrakaya) & Priyanka(Ganapa). Avanthika gets to shine more than Radhika and they were great in their roles. Ananth Rao plays a good intimidating cop and other supporting actors do their job well. And there's another important character called KaaLinga Bhat played by Sai Kumar. After Kalpana he comes back with a brilliant role to play. His dialogue delivery, his presentation and his variation in acting is exceptional. There are minor negatives – Some dialogues lacked the feel and punch while a few questions are left unanswered, maybe they weren't relevant to the main plot nevertheless it's easily one of the strongest content dependent movie to come in the recent times after Krishna Leela.
