Review : Pindam – Just for a few scenes

A new horror film, Pindam, starring Sriram and Kushee Ravi, is now out in theatres. The makers promoted Pindam as the scariest film to date. Let’s see how the movie is.

Story:

Antony (Sriram), an accountant at a rice mill, buys a new house in Suklapet. He moves there along with his pregnant wife, Mary (Kushee Ravi), his mother, and two daughters, Sophie (Baby Leisha) and Tara (Baby Chaitra). Very soon, everyone in the family starts experiencing strange things. They believe that the house is haunted and attempt to vacate the house. Annamma (Demonologist) comes to their rescue. What happened next? What is the mystery behind the house? This forms part of the rest of the story.

Plus Points:

Pindam gets it right as far as the backstory is concerned. The flashback portions are interesting and disturbing at the same time. The movie deals with an important social issue and the same has been conveyed effectively towards the end.

Sriram is pretty good in his role. As a person who gets worried about his family, the actor did a supreme job. Kushee Ravi fits the bill rightly as a housewife and is impressive. The background score and locations play a key role in a horror film, and Pindam is solid in these aspects.

The kids, Baby Chaitra and Baby Leisha are brilliant in their respective roles. Eswari Rao leaves her mark in an important character. The rest of the cast did what was expected of them.

Minus Points:

Pindam follows a regular narrative style in the horror genre, which we have been seeing for many years. A family entering a new house and experiencing a supernatural presence is beaten to death concept. That isn’t the main issue, but the narrative lacks any thrilling moments.

The first half isn’t engaging for the most part. There are a couple of interesting scenes, but they don’t last long. Instead, what we get to see are regular horror tropes like flickering lights, photo frames dropping from the walls, objects moving, etc. The jumpscares don’t land well and seem very artificial which is the biggest drawback of Pindam.

The movie has a striking resemblance to the Hollywood film Conjuring in many ways, and this also affects the viewing experience. The length is one more issue as the climax portions are dragged needlessly. Srinivas Avasarala’s character is not written well.

Technical Aspects:

Music director Krishna Saurabh Surampalli gave his best with the background score. The intriguing background score doesn’t make much impact, and that is mainly because of the writing issues. Sathish Manoharan’s cinematography is good.

The visuals and the production design set the mood needed for a horror film, but the choice to resort to age-old techniques to scare the viewers hampers the impact. Direction by Saikiran is promising in parts. It is good that he didn’t try to add unnecessary elements, but at the same time, the horror elements aren’t thrilling. Had he taken more care of the screenplay, the end result would have been way better.

Verdict:

On the whole, Pindam is a regular horror thriller with very few decent moments. The performances from the lead cast are good, and the movie is high on technical values. But the main issue is with the narrative, which is flat for the most part. The scary moments don’t make the desired impact, and the movie is stretched over the end. A few scenes and the backstory are effective, but the result is far from satisfactory.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.5/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

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