It can be pretty lonely out there, so ghosts always want to chat you up, and need you for company. They need a medium to communicate with you, however. Ghosts have genetically evolved over the centuries and have done well to keep pace with the changing times.
Ghosts are generally characterized with a burning passion for revenge and have more or less some kind of unfinished agenda on earth. They look forward to your whole hearted flesh and spirit support to finish their business on earth.
1G Ghosts. These were the classic cases of ghosts that we have grown up hearing all about in our granny’s laps when she would spin yarns to keep the naughty kids at home after dark and prevent us from straying into unknown territory. These guys were content with banging doors, curdling up the milk, running dirty water through the taps , upsetting the horses and generally were content with making spooky noises that chilled your spine. Rather subtle in their behavior, I would say and generally thorough gentlemen. Once in a while they entered somebody’s body if he happened to be caught peeing on their grave. Beyond that they were jolly good fellows with not much nuisance value.
2G Ghosts. These guys were pretty much the same as their ancestors except that they grew tech savvy over the years and began to explore other media to communicate, eg, they learnt tv programming skills, made popular soaps, and entered your lives through your drill machine, the lifts, and even your mother in law’s gin and tonic.
3 G Ghosts. These are the current model of ghosts. They have cutting edge technology, operate in a wide spectrum, allow blistering@mbps downloads, and can consummate their unholy unions with humans through a wide digital footprint. Your ipod, your email attachments, your programmable toilet seats are all potential carriers of this menace. They send mms, and are crafty masters of steganography, stereoscopy and calligraphy, and can conceal themselves in your mother in laws wig.
With this brief intro to the prevalent genres of ghosts, let us begin with the movie. It shows the ghosts making steady progression and use many methods , from tv to lift to mobiles to involve humans in the culmination of their unfinished plans on earth. 13 is an ominous number. 13 b is the flat in which madhavan lives with his joint family. His building was built on a demolished house numbered 13 b, where 30 yrs ago the entire family including kids of a news reader chitra were killed. So the movie begins on an ominous note. The milk gets curdled in 13 b, lifts won’t work, god’s pics don’t get nailed on the wall, the carpenter gets electrocuted, dripping blood makes a sign 13 on the floor , the blind man’s dog gets scared of 13 b, and faces appear twisted in the camera.
The narrative is simple and moves back and forth from the future to the past, unraveling mysteries as we go along. The ghosts make a tv soap called ‘sub durust hai’ which airs at 1300 h everyday only in 13b and no other tv ! the serial shows the future. So madhavan can see what accident or event is likely to occur, and he has to prevent it from happening and hurting his near and dear ones. At the same time he must unravel the past and find out who committed the gruesome murders to explain the uncanny events. Finally the serial shows him as the man who murders his own family – so madhavan now must send his family away and have himself locked up to prevent him from causing harm to his family. Madhavan finds himself increasingly sucked into the vengeful agenda of the ghosts of the murdered chitra family , and in saving his own family, he gets drawn into the events leading to the killing of the murderer. The game plan of ghosts is to threaten madhavan’s family so that he is forced to take interest in their chilling murders and solve the mystery as well as draw the murderer into the house and kill him, completing their revenge. The final climax is unexpected, thrilling and suspense is fully retained.
The horror in the movie is understated and subtle and doesn’t rely on cheap histrionics such as screams or raspy voices to create a sense of fear and foreboding, but by subdued psychic suggestions conveys that something sinister is underfoot. The story line is different from run of the mill bhoot stories and nearly quite good.
Madhavan is the virile young man who gets his wife Neetu Chandra pregnant just by watching kama sutra ; they never really seem to reach the consummation of their holy matrimony. Madhavan looks bloated and washed out. The movie is quite gripping and watchable once. My kids of course love the horror genre, and my son clung to me throughout. I think his tight grasp gives the verdict on the movie – good. Go with kids and they will freak out and make your day and help you paisa vasool.