The dead seek revenge

The two and half hour horror flick directed by Vikram Kumar known for his award winning short film- "Silent Scream", tries very hard to lose the expected cliché s in a Bollywood movie of this genre but succeeds only partially. Instead of abandoned bungalows or scary folks 13 B uses the idiot box aka the television as the medium of horror transmission (does “The Ring” ring a bell to some extent?)

13B Genre- Horror,
Cast-R. Madhavan,  Neetu Chandra, Sachin Khedekar, Murle Sharma, Poonam Dhillon.
Director- Vikram Kumar

The story unfolds with a family of eight moving into a plush new apartment purchased by the two brothers via a 20 year loan. Exciting as it maybe for the family, soon the younger brother played by R. Madhavan, discovers that strange and bizarre events keep occurring in the new apartment- messed up milk and impossible to hammer in a nail for mounting pictures of God. Worse still, is the fact that these events happen identically as depicted in a new television soap closely followed by the women at home, yet as one can expect, none notice this fact, save Madhavan.

Knowing that leaving the house would be a financial suicide for his family, Madhavan decides to keep quiet about these mishaps and seeks the help of his police officer friend to unravel the mystery.

Madhavan plays his role well and is aptly supported by the innocent wife played by Neetu Chandra. The entire cast has stuck to their parts but major chunk of the burden is carried by Madhavan. Though the film marches forward in good stride for its two and half hours , are songs really a necessity here?

Shedding some aspects like a woman’s blood curling scream,( which damages the ear drums more than scaring audience), dusty and isolated mansions, chanting of mantras unknown to the common man,  dark surroundings, creaking doors and windows , instead using a technology as a medium of horror, 13 B bravely tows Bollywood’s Horror genre into the 21st century. As to its title- 13B sticking to the accepted number of weird and evil happenings: one can only be so brave.

Despite the crew’s good efforts some places are more humorous than scary – Madhavan and his police officer friend calling the women to find out what happen in the soap! The plot unfortunately is predictable and therein lays 13B’s failure to make it to the top slot.

With its few chills and some twists 13B somehow manages to be included in the Horror rung – a not so horrifying horror flick.

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