Phoonk - The disaster

SPOILER WARNING!!! But I Think you would be better off reading this rahter than watching the movie

Today I went to meet my friends and we decided to watch Phoonk - Directed by the great RGV. The expectations were high as the promos seemed to be nice and the last horror movie he made was decent enough (Bhoot). We got into the hall 10 minutes late - thanks to a delay on my part.

As we entered the movie hall, we came to know that the main protagonist in the film (apart from the child actor) is a big-time contractor and has a couple who works with him. The wife's only job was to act in a spastic manner and give out a shrieking and loud laugh once every few seconds. It irritated me so much that I felt someone should go into the frame and shut her mouth up.

The hero's family had all kinds of people - the atheist hero, the god-fearing wife, the superstitious mother and a couple of kids. The whole problem began when the hero finds about the fraud that the couple are doing.So he humiliates them in a party and fires them. So, the couple decides to take revenge through black magic. They choose the daughter of the hero as the one to do the black magic on. The girl then gradually starts acting weird and the acting by the girl child is probably the only thing to watch for in the entire film.

The entire first half was filled with scenes where the camera focuses on small household items and then there are sudden sounds just to startle the audience. Someone tell RGV that horror movies are more than just startling people. I'll give the example of a couple of scenes -
1. The hero hears a sound when asleep, gets out of his room and is stratled looking at his own reflection in the mirror. Supposedly complementing the scene is a very loud background score. And the best part is that all of that turns out to be a dream.
2. (this is the most hillarious part) The house maid wakes up and sees the old lady of the house sitting in the hallway. She then blames the maid for all that was happening. She then picks up a lemon and takes it towards the maid. In this scene her hand starts to extend like the elastic man of fantastic four. Even the Ramsays used better ideas in their horror scenes. RGV, spare us please. And most predictably this too turns out to be a dream.

The second half sees the entry of the psychiatrist. Then a couple of scenes that follow remind you of scenes that may be called a mix of Bhoot and the Exorcist. Even when the girl starts levitating, the father refuses to believe the supernatural and the doctor is still giving rave jargons that start from Dissociated Personality Disorder, goes on to Psychological Dissociated Personality Disorder and ends as a case where the girl child has undergone some trauma and would take time to recover.

During this time the old lady of the house brings in a 'Tantric' who when being kicked out of the house shouts dialogues like 'Your daughter will die' and 'Dont be an Idiot' in the most uncomfortable English. This scene was particulary interesting to me. (that maybe because I was looking for reasons to laugh as this movie was certainly not scaring me)

By this time, the hero, having a change of heart starts believing in the supernatural and brings in a tantric of his own called 'Manja' (in Hindi that what we call the string used to fly kites). And 'Manja' ends the our agony by finishing off the black magic couple (he kills off the tantric witch by making a fan fall on her that cuts off her head). The hero then reaches back to his daughter and the credit for curing the child is taken by the psychiatrist. (maybe she was an MBA, giving the most weirdest of fundaes and gets away with it :P)

The only thing that benefited me was that now my bottom Five movie list has been updated. Now, Phoonk is a jewel in the crown of that list. And I think my friends need to thank me for making them miss the first 10 minutes as it saved them 10 extra minutes of pure torture.

What I would suggest is to see this movie on your system whenever it becomes available and watch it with the same fervour as you watched Gunda and the movies of that genre. You'll seriously enjoy it then.