Kaalo

Actors: Yash Patnaik, Mamta Patnaik, Dhaval Gada

Director: Wilson Louis

'Kaalo' comes with a good premise. After all there hasn't been any creature based horror film made in Bollywood and that too while being presented in day horror genre. In that context, one does want to check out what 'Kaalo' is all about as it promises good share of scare factor coupled with thrills.

What one gets to see is a film which is thrilling in parts, has good technical finesse to it but doesn't scare at all. Now how one wishes that the story had enough twists and turns to actually keep you captivated and scared because from the look perspective, 'Kaalo' has to be one of the most original attempts ever.

The film begins with the narration of an age old tale of how the interiors of North India were terrorised by witches. Told in a picture book format, the film soon moves '250 saal baad' as a bus makes it's way through a rocky terrain in Rajasthan. With an ensemble of characters travelling (a not-so-young man, a young girl, a newly wed couple, a photographer and a model, an aged couple, four rogues, a conductor and of course the driver), there is some time spent on character introduction.

As can be expected from a film belonging to this genre, there are shadows and a definite presence of the unknown felt by most of the characters as they all start getting killed one after another. Just like any slasher thriller, here too the focus is on how each and every killing takes place, something that acts as a positive for 'Kaalo'.

However, the sad part is that the film doesn't scare at all. The character of 'Kaalo', once it actually makes it's presence on screen around the middle of the film, isn't really the kind that would scare the day light out of you. Also, the film moves forward in a flat narrative with thrills, action sequences, VFX and cinematography being good but the suspense factor definitely missing.

This is where one feels that while Wilson Louis, the director of the film, did do all in his capacity to make the proceedings interesting, the writing let him down. Case in point being the key male protagonist (Aditya Shrivastava) who is let off by 'Kaalo' not once, not twice but thrice even when she knew that he was being the protector of the girl (Swini Khara) whose blood she was thirsting for.

On a positive front, some of the scenes do stay with you even after the film is through. The way 'Kaalo' buries it's victim under the sand is done well and so are the hallucinations that one of the key characters faces a couple of times. Background score is good as well and compliments the film's narrative. All actors in the film are uniformly okay with none of them either bowling you away with their histrionics or making you look the other way. Wilson Louis has shown that he is a good technician. Now all he needs is a better script to get his imagination run further wild.

After travelling across many festivals around the world and even winning a couple of awards Kaalo released commercially this week. A Bollywood horror flick travelling to festivals is quite a new thing by all measures and it definitely increased the expectations from the film. Plus the director's promise that the film will scare despite being shot in completely day light was intriguing But then we have learnt from earlier examples that films that may have been lauded in festivals don't really translate into something that audience likes. Kaalo justifies the same! The story is about a witch who used to sacrifice young girls to survive. She was killed and buried hundreds of years ago in a Kulbhata, a village amidst the deserts of Rajasthan. But even after that the villagers felt her existence and hence mass-emigrated to other villages! 250 years since then the village continues to be desolated place.

The witch comes back to life when a construction labour drilled into the place where she was buried. Soon after, a bus is forced to take a diversion from the regular route and pass through Kulbhata. Disaster strikes when Kaalo discovers that the bus has a girl child Shona (Swini Khara) travelling in it. Kaalo is laden with writing lapses. The beginning of the story itself is questionable and it is followed by numerous other discrepancies and liberties taken by the writer throughout the film.

One wonders how the witch, who is apparently only powerful within the limits of Kulbhata, forces the bus to take the diversion by creating a huge canyon right on the regular route. Probably the writer forgot about Kaalo's jurisdiction while writing this part! As the story continues there are a lot of inconsistencies in the way Kaalo kills her victims. She keeps letting go Samir (Daya Shetty), despite he being the only person who is trying to fight her!

If that was not enough, the director goes the Ramsay way by showing a rather silly looking creature as Kaalo. One look at it and all chances of you being scared will vanish in thin air! Giving credit where it is due, the film required good VFX considering the creature flies around and travels underground and Wilson delivers that. His expertise in special effects is highlighted. He also uses sounds and music very effectively. Performance by actors too is a plus point. There are very few characters and everyone puts in their best foot. Child actress Swini Khara is the star here!

Hundreds of years ago witchery/witchcraft was practiced heavily in Europe, Africa and Asia. It has been found that between 11th and 19th century as many as 9 million (90 lac) women, suspected witches with supernatural powers, were mercilessly killed in these regions. In India, eastern and northern India had witnessed many incidents of witchcrafts and witch-hunts. Every such incident had a story. Kaalo's story is inspired by one such folktale about a Witch named Kaalo who used to sacrifice young nubile girls for her immortality.

Kaalo was a witch who lived in Kulbhata during the 18th century. She was killed and buried by angry villagers for sacrificing young nubile girls to satisfy her greed for immortality, but her fear lived on. Year's later villagers spoke of Kaalo's sightings yet again. They claimed she was even more angry and dangerous and she was back to finish what she left incomplete Kulbhata was vacated overnight by scared villagers. All roads leading to Kulbhata were sealed by horrifying tales of Kaalo killing anyone who dared to enter Kulbhata. Until a bus carrying eleven passengers on its way to Kuldevi had to pass through Kulbhata.

One of the passengers on the bus was a twelve-year-old girl named Shona (played by Swini Khara of Cheeni Kum) who was traveling alone to spend her vacation at her grandmother's house in the neighboring village. Shona was clever, witty and cheerful. She soon became the life of the journey. Everyone loved her endearing manners. Especially the reclusive and reticent Sameer, who was traveling with a bag loaded with gun powder to blast a small hillock which would give way to a water canal for his drought hit village. Badly disfigured and thirsty for blood, Kaalo could smell the girl from miles away and headed straight for the bus.

She would kill everyone who came in her way. She had to have the girl anyhow When the passengers realized they were staring into death everything changed from being the life of the journey, Shona became their very reason for dying. Everyone wanted her out of the bus some even used her as a bait to lure Kaalo away from themselves. Human relations changed as people fought for their survival.