Ek Thi Daayan

Promos are good, starcast is good, promotion is good...so how is the film?The curse of the 2nd half strikes again, as it starts off as a riveting t... read more

Promos are good, starcast is good, promotion is good...so how is the film?
The curse of the 2nd half strikes again, as it starts off as a riveting thriller & ends up as a shoddy Bollywood spookfest.

 

In an age where Bollywood is churning crap after crap in the name of horror, here comes a film that starts of doing something different. Taking on the topic of witchcraft, Ek thi Daayan delves into the disturbed life Master Magician Bobo, who is always distrubed with flashes from his past.

The first half takes us through his childhood & he tryst with witchcraft by way of a book. Bobo & his little sister try cracking the mystery of their stepmom being a witch & boy does it make for a thriling watch.

The latter half deals with present day Bobo trying to unravel the thoughts haunting him, finding chilling similarities between a new member he encounters & a dangerous past, culminating to the suspensful outcome.

 

The first 1 hour literally goes past in a whiz, keeping you hooked with edge of the seat thrills & moments. The 2nd is marred by unnecessary songs, cheap shenanigans & a climax that is hugely disappointing.

 

All performers of this journey are in top form. Emraan Hashmi underplays it beautifully, Huma Qureshi pitches in yet another winner, Kalki looks sweet but the show stealer is Konkona Sen Sharma who's mere stare will have a chill running down your spine.

 

First time director Kannan Iyer has a superb take which goes awry somewhere. Its still a commendable film and deserves a watch for the unconventional format of horror.

 

To sum it up, this ones surely deserves a watch. It might not be the best watch out there but its surely worth the ticket price. Dekh lo!

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Has it finally arrived? A great Indian horror film? Two parts yes and one part no. I’m going to stick with the good stuff for now. Yes beca... read more

Has it finally arrived? A great Indian horror film? Two parts yes and one part no. I’m going to stick with the good stuff for now. Yes because we have got a horror film that is actually scary and not because it’s always making you jump. The kind of scary that works with the imagination and atmosphere. This doesn’t last for a second but for minutes. Yes because the horror here is derived from Indian folklore instead of awkwardly drawing from foreign myths. Finally.

 

To be honest, for the first half hour I wasn’t sure whether I was liking the film or not. We see Bobo (why that name?) the magician. He seems perturbed due to certain eerie happenings. We and him want to know why. Then comes the sequence where Bobo goes for an age regression through hypnosis and delves into his childhood. This then becomes a flashback and now I was sure about what I was feeling towards the film. I was not just liking it but loving it. It was so bloody good. I would go as far as saying that this flashback is better than the entire film. Watch the film just for this and Konkona Sen’s amazing performance. If this is not enough, there is also some humor in it! I don’t remember the last time a horror film made such a potent mix with comedy (not unintentional) while being genuinely scary.

 

Okay I’m going to say it again, the flashback with Konkona Sen is the best mini horror film ever made in India.

 

Post intermission, I was again feeling unsure about what I was feeling towards the film. The songs were getting more and more unnecessary, especially the awful Yaaram.  I was checking my watch. It excels as a horror film but not so much as a film. This is because of the flab present in the last hour of the film. The flab is not caused by the length but the story. The screenplay does not get it right. Bobo and his equation with Diana (Konkona Sen) is wonderfully done. His relationships with Tamara (Huma Qureshi) and Lisa (Kalki Koechlin) do not have an emotional connect and this is the film’s biggest undoing. The past doesn’t exactly come back to haunt him. There is something amiss. While there is a good twist and scary spells, it is almost ruined by repeating the climax that we saw in the first half which marked a great point for the interval. The same can’t be said for the ending.

 

I’m going to give this film some leeway, horror being one of my favorite genres and having seen so many bad horror films recently; I had been itching to like one. There is also a super cool Bengali doctor in the film who becomes serious and joyfully Punjabi whenever he wishes to. That can’t be a bad thing.

 

This film could have been the horror film we have all been waiting for and it almost is. I would definitely like to take this as a good omen. I hope it goes down well with the mainstream audience and we see more films about daayans, asuras and rakshasas, not zombies and vampires. This may not be a great horror film but it is indeed a good one. If you are a horror aficionado, make sure you watch this film!

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Debutant director Kannan Iyer's Ek Thi Daayan breaks new grounds in the horror genre for a hindi film in recent times, yet at the same time, teeter... read more

Debutant director Kannan Iyer's Ek Thi Daayan breaks new grounds in the horror genre for a hindi film in recent times, yet at the same time, teeters back to the familiar hackneyed framework of good vs evil to end up in a slight let down. 

 

Blending a psychological drama with a supernatural suspense thriller, Ek Thi Daayan is the story of Bobo, a magician who is haunted by his sisters death in childhood by the hands of a Daayan. An adult with a successful career and a loving fiance now, he find himself face to face with his past, and the Daayan once again threatening to undo his life. Switching from flashbacks to the present, Kannan builds up a beautifully moody eerieness that serves to retain interest. 

 

The first half of the narrative is more of a brilliantly twisted take on a young 11 year old's mind playing with an interest in the dark side and the fear of a new mother in his life. Is Bobo actually seeing a Daayan, or are his stories a figment of his imagination to avoid the change in his family, the question tantalisingly hangs in the air as the director, aided by a brilliant turn by Konkana, take sus through a refreshingly scary first half of the film. What follows post interval however, belies this promise to a large extent, taking recourse to Vikram Bhat school of rituals and mantras and the classic flying evil and triumph of the innocent pure soul. 

 

EKD's is still a unique and successful attempt since for the first time in years, it brings a cultural context to the horror angle in the story. Drawing heavily from the folklore of witches Vishal Bharadwaj and his co writer bring the myths associated with a witches and transplant them into a modern setting (much like RGV in Bhoot). There are the usual jump in the seat shcoking moments as well, coupled with an eerie sense of doom built in equal measure by the background score and the lovely visuals. Then there are the competent cast who carry the film on their shoulders whenever the story falters. 

 

Emraan as Bobo brings a sense of child like innocence to his part, giving out a very matured performance. Huma and Kalki are competent and make good of their screen time. Konkana, however, steals the show, her expresions, her lines, her menacing eyes alone are enough to shiver the spine. While the songs in the movie are impressive, they do marr the pace especially post interval. The insipid climax too is a dampner, leaving you high and dry wondering why the makers couldnt just stop the film with the lovely Konkana and young 11 year old kid's story in the first half. 

 

Ek Thi Daayan begins well but ends in a disappointing whimper. Yet, it is refreshingly ingenuine and well written for most part, making it one of the better horror flicks in recent times. Those who have patience to absorb its mood, Ek Thi Daayan would work brilliantly.For the rest, it is a decent one time watch.

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As children most of us like me have grown up listening to ghost stories from our elders. Most of them were told to us to put us to sleep ( so jao w... read more

As children most of us like me have grown up listening to ghost stories from our elders. Most of them were told to us to put us to sleep ( so jao warna bhoot aayega types),  to eat our food  and used as a ploy by our parents to make us listen to them.  That’s how we grew up as fans of horror films and equally scared of ghosts. As kids we also played a game called bhooth-bhooth in which we created ghost stories of our own. Some of the psychologist’s call this kind of upbringing “playing with fire”.

 

Emraan Hashmi is Bobo (not a relative of crime master gogo). He is a highly successful magician who performs at ‘kingdom of dreams’. Bobo is haunted by voices which are related to his past. He consults his childhood psychiatrist who also doubles up as hypnotherapist. Through the hypnotherapy session we go into a flashback to understand what it is that haunts him.

 

After the initial set up it is the flashback that works as an effective horror film. The childhood story is in which writer Vishal Bhardwaj goes back to his debut Makdee mode in a highly improved form in terms of the craft of writing. It is only when the hypnotherapy session ends that the stories trance is broken and director Kannan Iyer then struggles with the post interval narrative that leads up to a hilarious climax that will remind you of the climax of the recent Emraan Hashmi horror film ‘Raaz 3’ which was lifted from ‘Insidious’.

Amongst all the big names it is Vishesh Tiwari as the younger Bobo who ends up as the scene stealer followed by Konkona Sen Sharma.  Konkona’s performance will make you look at long haired women in a different light and people born on 29^th February will be scarred for life.

It is heartbreaking to see a film with so much potential lose the plot. This could have been a new benchmark for horror film in Bollywood. Alas!

Word of mouth –   Ek thi daayan has a fantastic first half followed by a scattered 2^nd half that looks like a bad sequel of the same.

 

Rating - *** ( So-So)

Ticket Meter – worth 200 bucks

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Bejoy Charan Mathur urf Bobo the Baffler (played by Emran Hashmi) is introduced as India ka top ka magician in Ek Thi Daayan. We are as the viewer ... read more

Bejoy Charan Mathur urf Bobo the Baffler (played by Emran Hashmi) is introduced as India ka top ka magician in Ek Thi Daayan. We are as the viewer allowed a privileged ringside seat to his magician self, privy now to the inner workings of his stage world—the assistant’s double, the smoke and screens, the code words, the how “they do it with mirrors”; but for the life of me I couldnt figure out how Bobo managed to spirit away the script writer mid-film. How someone who came up with the brilliant line Unki aankho me shehnayia bajne lagi could be hexed into penning a Im A Tiger in Bed (and I roar) is the most mind numbing trick of all. Seriously how does he do it? Bobo is engaged to the charming Tamara (Huma Qureshi) who when she is not the show-producer-in a-glass-box, has us confused whether she is part of Mumbai’s infamous builder mafia. Sell Uncle’s Flat. Im Lining Up Prospective Buyers For Your Old Flat. Will You Pay In White? Your Old Place Has To Go. Whew! Forget Kaun Thi Daayan by mid-movie you are blurting out “Aap Party Hain Ya Broker, Tamara?” Bobo feels like somebody-is-watching-me, pesters his childhood psychiatrist who puts him under regression hypnosis and we are treated to the full paisa vasool shivers up our spine episode that we paid for, I left kid with dad to run away to the cinema for. Enter Konkona Sen Sharma, who is what happens to you when you dont pen down your wishlist for the ideal governess and let it fly up a chimney. For that gets you Mary Poppins. Pressing a lift button for the sixth floor thrice-666 geddit-takes you to the inner recesses of apartment building hell and gets you a governess from ummm yes hell. Next time just call Domestique, ya? This aint a tribute to Macbeth (thats another Vishal Bharadwaj movie) but the script soon introduces a third prospective candidate for the Is She Isnt She a Witch/Daayan. Its Kalki the NRI who does three other worldly (or at least our desi worldly) tricks within ten minutes of entry. 1) Gets up on stage with the magician and isnt instant road kill for the five dozen uncle aunties, the three hundred five year olds stampeding on to the stage. HEY HE POINTED TO ME WHEN HE ASKED FOR A VOLUNTEER 2) Pays in cash for an apartment. INR 2 crore. ALL WHITE MONEY 3) Gets derelict apartment from hell done up, modular kitchen in, electricity back on, and a brand new refrigerator in less than a week. Too bad for the rickety balcony railing. Was one of the female protagonists pushed? Was it shoddy workmanship—Oye Tarneja back to mixing cement in sand again, eh? this is where the story along with the lady takes a deep plunge and never recovers. There are a couple of kick ass (literal) scenes that did have me rooting (for the daayan) but as I said what did Bobo do with the script? He had me baffled. A significant part of the final confrontation is about imploring one of the characters to Return To The Fold. The movie is sprinkled with subtle “asides”, a sing along session over a book of Gulzar’s (also the film’s lyricist) poetry for instance; so I will take it that this particular section was all about the Bhatts ghost whispering Return! All Is Forgiven. Most of the reviewers have put it out that the second bit didnt give them the chills. I have to confess that there was something in the last ten minutes that had me spooked. The daayan croaks before she crumbles—much like the script—into sand Mai Waapas Aaongi. I Will Return. That mostly means part two. Mummmmyyyyyyyy! view less