Phoonk 2 [Hindi] Movie Review

Expect the Expected!

“Expect the unexpected,” says a famous line from a Robert Ludlum novel. Although this amazing writer never wrote a horror story, this line he used in his book could be the guiding light for every horror filmmaker. Apparently, Milind Gadagkar, who has directed Phoonk 2, hasn’t read Robert Ludlum; as every scene and every scary element in the film kills you with a sense of déjà vu.

Yes of course, the first part was only a warning, as the promos said, but not in the sense they intended.

Frankly, Phoonk 2 does have all the elements a self respecting horror movie is expected to have. Frightened ladies wandering aimlessly in a spooky jungle; startled children looking hypnotically at an ugly doll; and hapless maid servants getting gruesomely killed to serve the bigger scheme of things; the film has all these trappings and they even manage to scare you silly at times. But these types of ghostly scenes were there in Phoonk, and Bhooth, and Raat and…

Got the picture?

Phoonk 2 continues the story of Rajiv (Sudeep) and his family who move to a new place after justifiably putting an overacting Madhu (Ashwini Kalsekar) to grave in the first part. To make it easier for the ghost to scare the dickens out of them, they rent a house at a deserted place, surrounded by a beach on one side and the forest on the other; a perfect setting for an enterprising ghost.

After fooling around with the family members and killing time till interval, Madhu’s ghost (with a ghastly makeup) captures the body of Rajiv’s wife Aarti (Amruta Khanvilkar) and gets down to some serious business. So, a Tantrik’s head is chopped off and a worker gets his body parts sliced off. A babe (Rajiv’s sister) loitering in the eerie surroundings wearing short dresses is killed in a swimming pool when she is wearing her shortest dress and finally, it all comes down to one heck of a bloody mess in the prolonged climax.

Not that the movie is bad, but it harps on the predictable chills and thrills a bit too much to scare a diehard horror movie fan who has seen it all before.

As someone has dubbed for Sudeep, his acting has lost its charm a bit, but he looks appropriately scared and turns up a decent performance. Amruta Khanvilkar dishes it out with some neat makeup and Ahsaas (the girl who plays Sudeep’s daughter) is perfect for the role.

There is nothing unique in the sound design and cinematography for those who have been watching RGV brand of horror movies for some time now.

In fact, that’s the final take on this whole movie too!

-Movie Review By Raju Shanbhag