Two Horror movies hit the screens today, or rather its best to refer as Comedy slash Horror flicks. Finding Humor amidst all the scary spine chilling moments never seem to die down as Kollywood keeps shelling out movies continuously in this genre. Kalaiyarasan after a hard hitting performance in Madras plays the lead in Darling2 along with Rameez, Kaali, Hari, Arjunan and Ramdoss .The flick on a whole just retains the theme of a haunted house with a history attached to it and is not a continuation of GV Prakash’s Darling.
The movie kicks off promisingly, a girl possessed apparently by evil spirits, exorcism, modern day medicines all go out in vain; all this happens within 10 minutes and then sets stage for an interesting plot. With just 5 actors, a decent BGM, some crafty work behind the lens, Darling 2 is a horror movie done on a shoe string budget. The film ticks out everything essential for a horror-comedy movie, a haunted house-check, bunch of friends-check, agonizing flashback-check, eerie twist in the tale-check, technically the movie fulfills all these elements but doesn’t give you the scare nor the other side of the coin i.e. humor.
A bunch of friends set out on a holiday after a tragedy that shook their lives a year back. The vacation becomes a nightmare after the estate they stay comes alive with spooky happenings. The director tries his hand in playing the ghost card every night when one of the friends notices the weird happenings around the place, only to be passed on to the other friend and finally by the time it is interval block, it’s just a load of music, ooh’s, aah’s from the lead actors without any real spooky moments. In the attempt to bring the ghost alive, Satish tries humor out of the lead actor’s fear as is the case in most of the Ghost Horror movies however the screenplay and most importantly humorous dialogues are largely missing, which is usually the key point in driving humor out of Ghostly plotted movies.
The first half has the friends taking out a vacation to Valparai, Kalaiyarasan plays the hero who helps out his friend to elope, but the sudden turn of events lead to his friend’s suicide. The event continues to trouble the friends, even the mere mention of their friend’s name gets into a heated argument. This part of the flashback forms the key to the movie’s plot; however the director does not do enough justice in reasoning behind the friend’s suicide nor the screenplay which just turns out without much juice.
The much required punch for the movie comes in the interval block after a rather long wait. Until then the director doesn’t actually bring in the ghosts, but just spices up the atmosphere with decent background score that climaxes with the stereotyped ghost sounds and some good work behind the lens, especially the lighting which deserves a special mention.
The film does have its share of pluses with some light hearted humor from the lead cast, for instance the scene before the interval block with Kaali Venkat, Hari trying to figure out who actually the ghost deserves some credit, the twist in the tale brings about a relief and makes us wonder what else is left in store. Cinematography by Vijay Kartik is one of the biggest merits of Darling2, the long shot angles of Valparai and the estate is breathtaking. The movie’s lighting is yet another positive story, the night shots are aesthetically taken and gives the much needed thump factor.
The movie could have done better maybe if the director had focused just on the horror content taking off the slow moving comedy track, as in the effort to manage both, the screenplay goes about confused in focusing one theme. Kalaiyarasan’s effort is good and the actor has a long way ahead in his cinematic career. Music by Radhan is average apart from BGM which gets good around certain sequences.
Overall Darling2 falls into the category of averagely made Horror-comedy movies providing comic and chilling moments occasionally.
Verdict: A slow moving horror flick aided by good camera work
