SHOB BHOOTUREY -- a review

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SHOB BHOOTUREY  -- a review


Shree Venkatesh Films (SVF) has more or less been successful in their endeavours to either thrill or chill you.‘Shob Bhootorey’ hangs somewhere between the genres of a horror and a spooky movie.

Certainly inspired by the secret element of M. Night Shayamlan’s tremendously successful movie “The Sixth Sense” in 1999, Director Birsha Das Gupta -- along with producers Srikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni -- makes this supernatural thriller to hold your attention with creepy music and hair-raising suspense.

Aniket (Abir Chatterjee) desperately wants to get rid of his dilapidated, eerie ancestral home in North Calcutta but the editor of his father’s spooky magazine SHOB BHOOTUREY that told chilling supernatural tales, is quite unwilling to sell the mansion which was also the office of the old man now dead. To make matters worse, a sinister looking young woman, Nondini (Sohini Sarkar), enters the scene to tell them that there are mysteries to unravel beyond their perception. Aniket, a no-nonsense non-believer of bizarre ghostly tales, dismisses her until he is lured to save a village school from being destroyed due to uncanny and mystifying goings-on. Of course, he wants Nondini to be put to test to solve the puzzle.

A little slow to begin with in order to create the right ambiance the film unrolls with the display of a collage of ancient items in the rooms of a decrepit mansion where there are only low powered bulbs used to light up the halls. Then a number of craggy old faces appear suddenly to startle you. Taking recourse to the age-old sound tactics of almost prehistoric creaky doors and windows, shutting and swinging in the unruly wind along with unexpected showers, Birsha Das Gupta manages to create a ‘Woh kaun Thi’ pitch of a mystery. Needless to say, beautiful music by Shubho Paramanik added much to the chilling factor.

Abir's  natural and convincing manner -- as a modern young man with a scientific bent of mind suspicious of all ghostly matters that are meant to create paranoia and panic among others -- seemed very real. Sohini, however, must have developed a spine problem trying to look terrifying with her head bent low at all times and speaking in spurts that was almost inaudible too sound uncanny .

Apart from the title (which is so mundane), the script, cinematography and hypnotic music make Shob Bhooturey watchable if you like being terrified with a bit of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. The conclusion of the movie leaves your imagination to take over and gives you the hint of sequels to follow suit, if I’m not mistaken.  I would give the movie 6 on 10.

Dola Dutta Roy (c)

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