Kalam movie review: Film moves at an unhurried pace and has predictable elements

Director: Robert Raaj
Cast: Amzad, Lakshmi Priya, Nasser, Madhusudhana Rao, Pooja

Gautham (Amzad) with his wife Deeksha (Lakshmi Priya) and little daughter returns from US and occupies a palatial house gifted by his dad Madhan (Madhusudhana Rao). Madhan is involved in illegal land grabbing activities and this house, which once belonged to a zamidar family, was also snatched bribing people and modified into a classy bungalow. Soon, Gautham and Deeksha start sensing eerie happenings, which haunt them. Neela (Pooja), an artist and painter who is brought by Deeksha to redo the house tells the latter that she feels evil vibes in that building and it has a dreadful past. Neela sends a ritualist (Srinivasan) to the house to ward off the ghosts.  Did he succeed?

There are only minimal characters and they are just functional with hardly any scope for acting. The film moves at an unhurried pace with repetitive scenes of characters moving slowly from one room to another in the huge bungalow after sensing a spooky presence. Also, it has all predictable elements that are normally associated with a horror genre. One cannot help but reminded of Karthik Subburaj’s thriller Pizzaas most part of the film unfolds inside a bungalow. The saving grace is the unexpected twist in the climax and kudos to Robert Raaj for maintaining the suspense factor intact till the end. Mukesh’s camera angles and BGM by Josh and Subish Chandran help to elevate scary moments.