Sandeep Lakshmanan

Annabelle Comes Home (ACH): By now we are all familiar with Annabelle being the cursed and spooky doll that terrorized the vulnerable in the previous installments of this Conjuring spin-off franchise. But does it warrant a trilogy of its own? The first Annabelle movie was a total disaster, the less said of it the better, while Creation explored the origins of the doll and had its fair share of thrills and frills. So why do we need a third movie in this franchise when the other two movies had pretty much closed the loop and kept their ending as “ended”. Well I guess the old adage “make hay while the sun still shines” still holds good. Now these movies form a part of the larger Conjuring Universe. To maintain the continuity of the series the producers have roped in the protagonists of the original Conjuring series Vera Farmiga and Parick Wilson, along with the writer of the previous two Annabelle movies and The Nun, Gary Dauberman, who now becomes the director with ACH and the producer being none other than James Wan - the man who started it all. The original Conjuring movie introduces Ed and Lorraine Warren with a brief episode of Annabelle and ACH continues from there. But very soon we realize that this movie is not about Ed or Lorraine but their sweet and innocent daughter Judy. Judy has certain traits that she has inherited from her mother and she is all too familiar with the demons and spirits that haunt their inner-world. Fans of the series would remember the Warrens locked room in their house filled with the supernatural and cursed artifacts from the cases they worked. They bless it weekly with the services of a bishop to ward off any malevolent demon that may have escaped. The troubles start when the senior Warrens have to be away from the house for a case and takes the help of a babysitter to take care of Judy. Now the babysitter being a vibrant teen has few uninvited “guests” and one of them with a heightened curiosity opens the locked door. And the demons have a field day terrorizing the teens at will from then on. Imagine the terror of sleeping with Annabelle right beside you in your bed. How about getting locked in the banned room all alone at night with no lights on and all demons looking to kill you. The movie has a sense of creepiness and spookiness that would get to you. But where it fails is the limited number of scares that it throws at you. And most of them are all too familiar. Nonetheless this is a movie for the die-hard Conjuring fans. Verdict: 2.5/5 stars

Disappointed. A ghost angle that's totally unnecessary and silly. The scares have been borrowed from a mashup of horror movies. Nothing new or scary there. The investigation is better than the horror elements. But something feels missing. Aditi balan needs proper coaching as her expressions and emotions have no bearing to the scenes. Very poor acting indeed. Even Prithviraj had issues in certain scenes which required mature understanding of the character.

Just an average film. Has nothing new to offer. There are a lot of pointless story elements that have no relation to the big reveal. The sound appears to be ill-timed and pops up drumming for no apparent reason in scenes that dont require it to be drummed up. You could watch it only to understand what the whole thing is about.

Pretham 2 Review: Pretham is a misleading title as this is nowhere near the usual horror flicks that we are used to. An investigative thriller? May be. Now the issues I have with it are many but to start with its the choice of the cast. Now they have done a decent job, don’t get me wrong, but the lack of a familiar and popular face really dampened the expectation and spirit of a thriller, sometimes you do need a popular face to really relate to the character. Now well defined characters really lead the development of a story. They were as stranger to me at the end of the movie as they were at its beginning. The story is a little cliched and nothing remarkable. Next are the the dialogues and conversations. They are not befitting the occasion or the moment and are bereft of any logic. The climax is very prolonged without too much happening and is on the verge of boring you. By all means this is one movie you could avoid. Ratings: 1.5/ 5 stars Verdict: Avoidable

LAD is one of the movies that tells you that the reviews of late that you see online are either paid or fan-pleasing. This youth-centric movie is illogical, women bashing, has drab comedies and uninspiring performances from the lead pair. A newbie director with no control over how the movie pans out adds to the mess. Nivin is one lucky star. He has no screen presence, no comic timings and his face is devoid of any real emotion. Yet he is very popular among the masses. Now this is a young story with not so young real characters and that includes Nayans. They are out of sync with reality. And I don’t understand why a supposedly feminist character gets all interested in a jobless, pretentious, socially repellent, drunkard. He has no respect for his elders and no character nor remorse for his actions. Yet she falls for him and even after a multitude of lies and deceitfulness she still carries the affection. It has one or two fancy tunes that might hook you up. But otherwise it is a painful watch.

Athiran is a movie that falls in the psycho-thriller genre. And sure enough it deals with mental illness, autism, psychiatry and schizophrenia though it doesn’t elaborate any. It starts off in a familiar spooky setting. You have a mental asylum that’s located in a remote hill station which predictably is detached from the city and society. You see a doctor visiting the asylum to evaluate and report the numerous complaints levelled against the people running the show there. And very soon all hell breaks loose for the doctor and the rest of the movie deals with how he unravels and pieces together the mysteries and myths surrounding the asylum and the people there. It is powered by exceptional performances from the lead pair of Fahad Fazil and Sai Pallavi and ably assisted by the talented and very meticulously chosen supporting cast. The camera work is exceptional. It captures the beauty of the locale but also simultaneously creates the heightened level of curiosity that this type of a movie calls for. It has great sound effects that perfectly compliment the onscreen action. The story may not be unique but it is not cliched either. So it’s a familiar yet one of a kind and distinct movie. The movie has its flaws though. Like the songs that I felt were totally unnecessary and creates some lag in an otherwise engaging film. I liked the movie personally but I feel it opens with a lot of promise but in the end disappoints with a predictable climax. But hats off to the team for attempting to make a movie that is one of a kind and that could easily have been mistaken for a Hollywood blockbuster if not for the malayalam actors in the film.