July 4, 2015

Given that horror is the flavour of the season in Tamil cinema, it is no wonder that we are beginning to get every sort of horror film. But what everyone seems to be conveniently ignoring is the fact that not everyone can make a truly scary ghost movie. Yoogan is a low-budget horror movie like Pizza, but while the latter had attitude and ingenuity, this one is just a compendium of horror movie cliches — unusual camera angles, noises in the night,… read the rest.

Given that horror is the flavour of the season in Tamil cinema, it is no wonder that we are beginning to get every sort of horror film. But what everyone seems to be conveniently ignoring is the fact that not everyone can make a truly scary ghost movie. Yoogan is a low-budget horror movie like Pizza, but while the latter had attitude and ingenuity, this one is just a compendium of horror movie cliches — unusual camera angles, noises in the night, jump scares, a ghost who the makers want us to take as seriously as the one in Grudge but whose very appearance only recalls the funny ghost in Scary Movie 3, a dull backstory for the ghost targeting these youngsters — that we are hardly scared. Even the dramatic portion, which is set against the backdrop of an IT company, seem like cliches involving people working in the IT industry (they hardly work at office, they drink, they date endlessly, they lack morals). And the modest budget is evident in the visuals, which have a TV serial quality to them, while the acting resembles what we might find in student films. That the director wants to scare us with the camera angles and sound design instead of resorting to cheap VFX is understandable — and even commendable — but things turn monotonous after the first couple of scenes as he has just one scare trick up his sleeve. Even the revelation in the final portions fails to generate any excitement.

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