Official Trailer:
It is hard to slot Bhoothakaalam into a genre, a horror, or a psychological thriller. Or is it a psychological-drama-horror-thriller? You can infer the title as the past or the ghosts from the past. Like the series The Haunting of Hill House, do the ghosts lurk in their minds or are they really lurking in the shadows of the house.
From the first frame, director, Rahul Sadasivan, skillfully builds the setup keeping us doubtful about the happenings – are they real or is it all in the minds of Vinu? Is he just imagining them? Director uses all the ingredients to build the skepticism. There is the death of a loved one. A clinically depressed mother. Skipping of the medications. An overbearing mother doesn’t want him to move out to another place for the job. Son stuck at home not able to get a job. Relationship between son and mother not in good terms, son unhappy that mother forced him to do medical science against his wishes, spoiled his career. Mother stuck in the past and the son wants to move to the future by moving out. Too much of drinking. Too much of any of these or combinations of these can cause one to hallucinate. When others don’t believe what you are saying, you start doubting yourself.
When strange events start happening in the house, as audience we are not sure. Is the son playing out the demons from his mind? To the mental health background, we get to know about past suicides in the house, problems faced by earlier tenants, as the story unfolds. Maybe, just maybe, Vinu’s episodes aren’t just hallucinatory after all. But we aren’t sure yet. When the director pulls the rug from our feet in the last 15-20mts, the film transitions from psychological drama to a terrifying horror film. The tonal shift is seamless and worked well considering what the director sets out to do.
Personally, I loved the minimalistic setup, lighting, and sound design, use of shadows to generate the scares, chills, and creepy feeling. Highly impressed by the cinematography, the framing of the scenes, use of space inside the house, and the movements elevate the mood of the film. As the saying goes, a good director is one who is not visible in the movie. Bhoothakaalam is a textbook example of that. When things look so effortless, we appreciate the labor that has gone in the background.
Revathy and Shane Nigam deliver an exceptional ingenious performance. There is a heartbreaking scene towards the end that really hit me, where Vinu speaks of his biggest fear to his mother, The fear of our loved ones not understanding us, which I think is scarier than any ghosts. Bhoothakaalam is a brilliant amalgamation of psychological and horror thriller genres. Don’t watch it alone in the night 😱