Black Magic has always haunted people as there are many believers in this country as well as around the world. Especially in the rural parts of India, this method has made a long lasting impression on the minds of the people. Not to mention, the babas and the tantrics always wander around in the villages to cement the thoughts. In the urban scenario, black magic or I should say "partial black magic" do exist in the minds of people. I still see a lot of lemon and chillies hanging in the auto rickshaws, trucks and buses. I have seen some of them even in some of the polished apartments where so called educated people live. Nothing against black magic. But most of the time it is known for harming people and that's the reason people fear it. All said and done, Ram Gopal Varma tries to capture the same belief in his target audience with his latest horrifying movie "Phoonk". The movie is a story of a contruction engineer Rajiv (Sudeep), a hardcore atheist, who does not allow the workers on his construction site to build Lord Ganesha's temple. Everything is going on fine for him with a great lawyer, trusted assistants Madhu (Ashwini Kalsekar) and Anshuman (Kenny Desai), a beautiful wife Arati (Amruta Khanvilkar), one daughter Raksha (Ahsaas Channa) and a son Rohan (Shrey Bawa) and his mother Amma (Jyoti Subhash). So far so good!!! One night he comes to know about Madhu and Anshuman's fraud because of which he throws them out of the house. Angered by the act of Rajiv, Madhu plans to take revenge and performs black magic on his daughter Raksha. Raksha starts behaving abnormally like disappearing from the house, looking at a crow sitting on the tree continuosly, speaking in a manly voice and in the end negating the law of gravity by floating in the air. Helpless Rajiv, who hopelessly have to believe in the magic, then seeks help of Manja (Zakir Hussain). Watch the remaining part in the theatre!!!
Although Varma has a knack of making horror movies, I think the scariest of all of them is "Raat" starring Revathi. I even did not found "Bhoot" that spooky. I got little bit of 'jhatkas' in "Vaastu Shastra" but the worst of them all is "Phoonk". I was hardly scared except for one or two odd scenes. I could have watched it alone in the theatre had I participated in the contest. Above all, if you would notice the trend, all these movies are made on the same plot. I also observed, Varma taking some inputs from "The Exorcist" and "The Poltergeist".
The best technique that works for Varma is camera angles and background sound which is a main stay of any horror movie. So hats off to the cinematographer (Savita Singh) and background musician (Salim- Suleiman). Story - repetitive as Varma's horror flicks in the past (in short, nothing new!!!!). Screenplay is perfect in the first half, second half, it drags.
Performances - Sudeep, a Kannada actor by origin, has a good screen presence and acts well. Amruta Khanvilkar, a Marathi actress by origin, hams. Zakir Hussain does a good job and he looks like those typical tantric. Ashwini Kalsekar manages to shout and for me that's not acting. The only person to bring some giggles is the small boy Shrey. He is cute and lovable. The rest of the cast is fine. The best of the lot is Ahsaas who performs the character of Black Magic victim. Watch her talking in a manly voice in the pre-climax scene. Perfect to the core!!!!
Last but not the least, I can say only one thing. The movie may appeal to the people who believe in black magic. The rest will have a tough time watching the movie. A small advice for Mr. Varma - Please don't make mockery of your own films.
Rating - 1/5
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