Phoonk

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.

The movie is reasonably good in Indian standards, with a few of blushes, which Shri RGV, as he is known and portrayed, was expected to be eradicated.

For an atheist hero, not to believe in supernatural forces even when his daughter defied gravity is beyond pardon, a blush on sensibility.

The fate of the ghost buster Zakir Hussain at the end of the movie is equally left unanswered and thus obnoxious.

The central characters blended well with the movie but the maid was expected to react better and so was the driver who was famous before as young Amitabh Bachchan, the Indian icon, in Agnipath shouting "maine jaala diya" (i burned it all), as did Seema Biswas in RGV's Bhooth. The Witch and the Witchdoctor were the best of the lot and they played the role of their lifetime. The spookiness was mostly in aggravated background score, which hummed more than it really scared.

Considering its a RGV production, I rated it 6, as he was expected to fare better.

I went for a Sarkar and came back with something in between Aag and Darna Maana Hai.

Sorry RGV, you ought to be more careful next time in hiring right people for editing notes, before heading for it.

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.

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