Kaalo Hindi Movie

Feature Film | 2010 | Horror
Critics:
Kaalo completely fails in its primary objective - to scare. This one will not even scare a child!
Dec 17, 2010 By Noyon Jyoti Parasara


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!



Overall though, Kaalo completely fails in its primary objective - to scare. This one will not even scare a child!


Noyon Jyoti Parasara

   

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