Darna Mana Hai – Part 7

The concluding part in the memorable horror flicks

Poltergeist (1982)
A family moves into a new home to find host of ghost visiting them. Pretty amused at first, the story turns into nightmare when the ghosts start terrorizing the family and kidnaps the youngest daughter. The movie though directed by Tobe Hooper was produced and written by Steven Spielberg. It had the stamp of Steven Spielberg all over. Poltergeist in German means a ghost, which announces itself with small rapping sound. Poltergeist has many scary haunting scenes. The small girl sitting in front of TV showing a dead TV channel the same as in “The Ring”. Things moving around in the house, The tree by the window, same concept used in “Vasthu Shastra” and The balancing chairs in the kitchen. The movie had sort of scientific research integrated in the story. Toward the end the movie gets melodramatic and scary with many ghost coming out in the open. The sequels did not do that well
Rating: 9/10

The Poltergeist was based on a haunted house built on a burial ground.

A Nightmare on Elm street series (1984 and later)
A ghost of a child killer, who is killed by angry parents returns to haunt the children of the parents who killed him. However, he haunts them in their dreams, which means that if he kills them in their dream then they die in real. The movie inspired six sequels. Freddy Kreuger became a scary monster with gloves and knives. Wes Craven is known the master of horror and has made many horror movies. But none of his movies have become popular as the Elm street series. Scary with people getting killed like flies. A more like Jason from “Friday the 13th”. A movie about fight between Jason and Freddy was released in 2004.
Rating: 6/10

Freddy Krugger of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.

Sixth Sense (1999)
M Night Shymalan’s first major hit. The film establish the different and distinct style of Shymalan. A small boy see dead people and his mother freaks out. A psychologist played by Bruce Willis tries to help the boy. The boy sees dead people but the people don’t know that they are dead. The movie starts slow and builds up on the characters and the story. The climax was such a surprising twist. It is the story of fear. Fear that almost every child faces. Fear of something lurking in the dark. The movie starts slow and then builds on the fear. A nice movie to see in the dark when by the end of the movie you want to just make sure that there is nothing under the bed.
Rating: 9/10

Sixth Sense catapulted M Night Shyamalan into the big league.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The movie is about 3 students who venture into the woods to find the legend of a local witch and then they never come back. The footage they shoot using their hand held cameras is found under a cabin in the forest. The movie is the footage recorded by the three students. When the movie was released, it was thought to be based on real story. Even the website indicated the same thing. But the story is not real. It may appear real. The actor may not appear acting and that is the plus point of the movie. Everything appears to be real. The trip, the search, the fear. An unknown figure tracking them at night. The anguish and the anger of being lost appear to be real. Its not much of horror that is seen but the anticipation of the unknown that is more scary. BWP was a very unique experiment but it was tried with little success before with “The last Broadcast”. Can be seen once
Rating: 7/10

The Blair Witch Project succeeds in convincing the viewer that it was actually a true story and all the footage was real.

Donnie Darko (2001)
I could not describe it as horror because it’s not that scary. It is more similar to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” where the viewer is left to interpret the story but not scary. If you don’t watch the movie with the full concentration, then you are bound to loose the basic story. I watched the movie twice to understand what was really happening. Donnie Darko a teenager having trouble of sleepwalking finds himself talking to a six-foot tall bunny rabbit with a scary face. The rabbit tells him that the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. He comes out of the house because of the rabbit calling him and then returns in the morning finds a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom in turn saving him. The save becomes confusing for Donnie. The Rabbit comes repeatedly and tells him to do evil things. The life of Donnie takes a turn with also the life of the people around him changing. Some disappointments, some secrets coming out and as the time nears for the end of the world, Donnie has to decide to change the past or accept the future. If it sounds confusing, then see the movie and try to interpret the story. The end is tragic. The movie has humor, horror and a sensitive story written and directed by debutant director Richard Kelly. In all Donnie Darko is an experience as the movie lingers into your mind long after you have seen it.
Rating: 9/10

The gaint Bunny Rabbit in Donnie Darko.

Dark Waters (2002)
This movie is being remade by Hollywood. It will be released by mid-2005. But I have seen the original. in Japanese language. Japanese have a very different way of making horror. They can go overboard with special effect like the many monster movies or simple tell a story without special effect and still manages to make it scary. “Dark Waters” is of the later kind. “The Ring” and “Ju-On” also achieve the same effect. The movie starts with a just divorced mother with a six-year-old girl trying to start a new life. She moves into a new apartment. She finds out something wrong when she finds out water dripping from the flat above them. A lot of rain and gloomy atmosphere builds the scary nature of the movie. A missing girl, a red small school bag makes the movie eerie. She also starts seeing the girl. Almost based on the mother and daughter, the movie scares with little and almost no special effects. The climax can be a little melodramatic when the grown-up daughter meets her ghost mother. The same director who directed “Ring” writes and directs “Dark Waters”.
Rating: 9/10

The Ring (2002)
The Ring is the remake of Japanese movie “The Ringu”. This is one of the best scary movies I have seen. The story is of a mysterious Video tape. Anybody who sees the Video tape gets a phone call and a voice on the other days whispers “Seven Days”. The person who sees the tape dies in seven days. The movie starts with tow girls alone in the house. One of them dies and the other one goes into a state of shock. The aunt of the dead girl is a reporter and tries to investigate the tape. She sees the tape and couple of days later, her son too sees the tape. Now it’s a race against time before she and her son dies. The movie is more like an investigative journalism. The movie tries to unravel the mystery behind the tape. The best horror scene of the movie is obviously the climax. The movie remains one of the best made horror classic. Without showing the gross, it manages to scare you pretty well
Rating: 9/10

The well in the horror flick “The Ring”, a copy of Japanese “Ringu”.

Signs (2002)
Signs directed by M Night Shyamalan were based on the mysterious crop circles. The movie was not as successful like the Sixth Sense but was a hit. Shyamlan cast Mel Gibson and replacing Bruce Willis who was always a part of Shyamlan movies. Sign tells the story of a farmer/priest who has lost faith after the death of his wife in an accident. He has doubts about himself when strange crop circles start to appear in his fields and suddenly the life of his family is in danger. Though not a hardcore horror movie, the movie does have its moments of terror.
Rating: 7/10

“Signs”, M Night Shyamalan’s 3rd movie which was a huge grosser.

The Village (2004)
The fourth movie from M Night Shyamalan in his distinctive style of story telling. “The village” tells the story of a village surrounded by forest. In the forest are creatures who have a pact with the villagers that the villagers don’t enter the forest and the creatures don’t enter the village. The film delved on the concept of protection of innocence. The ending is surprising and many found it unbelievable. The movie played with the viewers fear of the unknown. Instead of showing scary monsters, the directors lets the viewers imagine the monsters, a technique he used in his earlier movies too. The ending leaves you wondering if you should be scarred or laugh at the stupid ending. Shyamalan made better movies earlier.
Rating: 6/10

Joaquin Phoenix standing at the boundary of the Village afraid of “Those We Don’t Speak Of” – The fear of the unknown.

Grudge (2004)
The movie was based on a Japanese hit “Ju-On”. It is a Japanese belief according to “Grudge” that when a person dies in rage, it leaves a curse behind. The movie starts with a suicide of a college professor in Tokyo. The story shifts to an American nurse student who is living in Tokyo with her boyfriend. She fills in to take care of an old woman when the regular nurse fails to show up. When she enters the house she finds evil ghost in the house born because of the curse. The curse or the ghost kills anyone who enters the house. The movie is scary and is made to scare. The story is not so well put. But who cares when the horror scenes makes you heart jump out. The cats, the closet, the house itself, the small boy and the ghost with big hairs is everything to scare people. It could not be termed as a better film because of a weak story line. “The Ring” and “Dark Water” had a better narrative. Still the movie has its share of chills and thrills
Rating: 8/10

The Grudge was based on japanese hit “Ju-On”

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