Movie Review: Ice Cream; RGV fails to scare again

Hyderabad: Ram Gopal Varma, despite recent failures in the horror genre, has made yet another horror flick, Ice Cream. The film stars Tejaswi and Navdeep in the lead.
The film’s story revolves around a medical student Renu (Tejaswi). She returns home along with her boyfriend Vishal (Navdeep). After her boyfriend leaves, Renu hears weird noises in the big house that she lives in.

She even dreams of a ghost haunting her and she feels that the ghost is around her. She asks her boyfriend to come and give her company. He promises to come, but rubbishes her story putting it all down to imagination, because of being alone in a big house. She also has a few visitors, like a plumber and a maid. What happens to Renu next forms the rest of the story.

At the start of the film Ram Gopal Varma says that it is based on a true incident that happened to a girl in Bengaluru. Actually there is not much to the story. Most of the time, the girl in the film sleeps and dreams of ghosts, wakes up, goes for a bath, reads books and eats ice cream. It’s almost a test of the audience’s patience as the girl has almost nothing to do in the film. The director feels that he scares the audience, but there aren’t any such scenes. A few times, though, the background music does try to scare.

There was a cheap publicity stunt before the film’s release that there is a nude scene included in the movie. It was just an attempt to grab eyeballs and does nothing to help the film. The entire film has only two characters Tejaswi and Navdeep with a maid and a plumber coming in briefly.

The film does have its plus points. Tejaswi, as Renu, has played her part well. Navdeep’s role, though not long, is also played well. Technical aspects of the film are good and the flow cam scene too. The background music has been composed by Seshu and well, as said earlier, it tries to scare. This film is a big plus for Tejaswi, who is making her debut as a lead actor, and might help her get good roles in future.

You are left wondering why the director chose Ice Cream as the title as it is no way connected to the film’s subject. One would also wonder if RGV has lost his touch, especially with horror films.