Phoonk 2: Stale and Disappointing.

Director: Milind Gadagkar
Cast: Sudeep, Amruta Khanvilkar, Ahsaas Channa

Rajiv (Sudeep) and Aarti (Amruta Khanvilkar) along with their children Raksha (Ahsaas Channa) and Rohan, shift to a new house by the beach and forest at the backside (Quite intriguing this! Where do you find such locations in real life, Konkan is it?) They come to be haunted by the ghost of Madhu (from Phoonk1); till they finally get rid of it after a battery of corpses has fallen. That’s the plot, lame as they come, nothing more and nothing less.

Like I mentioned, the plot of the movie is completely unimaginative; though a sequel of Phoonk, the plot looks more like a copy-paste of the Ramu’s previous horror venture (as a producer) ‘Vastushastra’ – a family moving into a new and deserted house which is haunted by a ghost. All the elements purported to create horror are much beaten one and mostly fail to create the chills – camera repeatedly and mandatorily strolls the house back and forth, there is this abandoned doll, abrupt and explosive sound effects (including that of flies buzzing), startling reflections in mirror, polyphonic babbling by the ghost, tantriks, etc.

The lack of imagination runs amok as you get to see white powdered face and lensed-eyes popping out, for a ghost (yawn). While the ghost goes about killing rest of them with all the might of the Mt. Everest, why does it have to resort to more basic form of killing – by brandishing a knife, and playing chase – when it comes to killing the protagonists? Why not just twist the neck, snap the spine or behead them for that matter? The ghost even has a hand-to-hand duel with the protagonist, in which the ghost is KO’d. The director fits in some Enya-like music to make the ending a bit melodramatic (wider yawn)!

The performance of the cast is all-right – nothing to brag about, neither much to complain. The dialogues, or whatever there is of it, are halting and crippled. Count the number of times the characters spew out “just relax” (snore)! Surprisingly, the screenplay of the movie is very disappointing. Because, a skewed plot or not, Ramu gets a decent job done when it comes to screenplay. The director is absolutely clueless, as to how and where to carry the storyline after the initial build up, leaving the audience with the impression that the script was written extempore each day as the shooting progressed.

Making a horror movie is a difficult art. With hardly any genuinely chilling moments in the film, debutant director Milind Gadagkar fails to do a decent job. Phoonk 2 is disappointing. This one difinitely pales in comparison to Ramu's 'Bhoot', which was a much better effort. Steer clear, save yourself some money.

Rating: 1.5/5