User Reviews

Aval/The House Next Door/Gruham (2017): A perfect spooky horror have became rare these days in any language.While most of the films releasing in a country belong to horror still most of them fail to impress the audience.Get Out is the only horror of 2017 which is amazing.Aval got highly positive response from all over India which really surprised me as Maya and Pizza is the only Indian horror in a decade which gave a true horror experience and still remains one of the best horror films I had ever seen.So did Aval gave the same experience?

Plot: Krish(Siddharth) and Lakshmi(Andrea) are a couple who lead a happy life together. One fine day, a lovable family join them as their neighbors. As time passes by, one of the family members, Jenny (Anisha Victor), gets transformed into an evil spirit and starts troubling everyone badly. Who is this evil spirit? Why is it targeting the family? and how does Krish handle this entire situation?

My Review: Horror stories have become quite routine of late as many makers have attempted this genre and almost all angles in the genre have been covered.After finding that the genre has lost its novelty, south Indian film-makers have started exploring horror-comedy genre by stressing more on comedy.A real horror experience never tries to make you feel comfortable but scares the hell out of you.

Aval may have ages-old story of a haunted house occupied by new family and the teenager of the family getting possessed by it.But what really works in Aval is its genuine horror moments.Aval is filled with horror effects right through the first half and they scare you convincingly.Especially the scene at the window scared the hell out of me.The centerpiece of the action in his film though is our subconscious dread of what stands outside the window of our home in the dead of night and in the house across the street.

But second half is a big letdown as it becomes highly predictable tho those who watch International horrors.To those who have no idea about The Conjuring,The Ring,Grudge and some other horrors would definitely love this film but to those who watched them,the second half disappoints.Even the climax twist is clichéd.

Technically Aval has maintained high standards with top-notch cinematography which helped in setting the right mood for the film.Cinematographer Shreyaas Krishna lends an intimidating air of doom and gloom both to his intimate frames in closed spaces bathed in warm colours and his lavish shots of gray, grim open areas and any place outside the two homes.Sound design is very good,especially in first half.

Siddharth as newly married doctor and the guy who helps the girl Jenny is perfect. He still has boyish charm but at the same time he looks matured too. Though he is the lead actor, he lets the story get more importance than his character or his performance. Andrea is also impactful as Siddharth's wife and the couple shares a sizzling chemistry on screen.(All those lip locks added for the sake of giving Hollywood look??Spoiler:Not the important sex scene which may look wild for Indian Cinema but it is needed though!). Real show-stealer is Anisha Victor.She has given stellar performance as a girl who is possessed by a spirit.She makes you cringe when she is possessed by the evil spirit and gets your sympathy after returning to sanity.

So,Aval/The House Next Door/Gruham provides a genuine horror experience with brilliant scares in first half but the latter half disappoints with highly predictable scenes.

My Rating 6.5/10

The House Next Door starts with a montage letting us know that it's taking place in the Indian Himalayas and presented in black and white with some crackles to mimic old film stock. The scene is set in a house with curving eaves, which is significant both to let the audience know before even seeing them that a Chinese family lives here, and also because such eaves were symbolically intended to ward away evil spirits. A mother and daughter have a bucolic afternoon there, as the mother lets the daughter know to expect a younger sibling soon, and then combs the girl's long hair. Then the camera pans out past the doors and bloodcurdling screams are heard from within before the scene changes again, this time to a love story set to upbeat music. This second montage is significant for letting us know what the stakes are for this young couple in love. Krish is a brilliant brain surgeon, and as he settles into married life with Lakshmi, the camera gives us another nice long pan to let us know that these two lovebirds live right next door to the house in the opening. They watch a family move into that house and attend a housewarming party where they meet the patriarch Paul, his wife and their young daughter Sarah, and his older daughter by an earlier marriage. The teenage daughter is a rebellious beauty named Jenny, she has a huge crush on Krish and as the evening progresses she might have gotten possessed. So far, so good with a very intriguing setup that leaves the viewer wanting to know more. The film's middle third progresses with plenty of super creepy scenes and Gothic atmosphere and some hair raising near misses for both families. The third act is where the twists come about, and they're a little too predictable to sustain the tension from the first two acts. Still, the film keeps the viewer's interest well enough, with fantastic production values. Even though it looks better than the similarly themed 1920, and does not interrupt the narrative with musical numbers, it does not have quite as creepy a story line by the end. It is definitely worth a watch if you like ghost stories and possession stories, as this film is both in one.

All right, so I will begin with the pros. THND does quite well until its first half. There is a nice Chinese story in the prologue, which gives a very different feel for a Bollywood film. Then there is the atmosphere itself. The locations of the Himalayan valleys is a good call, and the eponymous house (and the neighboring one) are meticulously selected and furnished.

The highlight of the film is a pre-interval exorcism scene. I could even go as far as saying it is one of the best exorcism scenes in Hindi movies. Also kudos to the actor who plays Jenny (Anisha Victor). She brings out the impact of the scene.

A shoutout to the art department. The houses are populated with the right motifs and curios to create the atmosphere of each scene. The set design is quite excellent.

But that's where the pros end.

The plot is as hackneyed as they come. This is, after all, another haunted house story with a resident 'bhoot'. Or 'bhoots' in this case. There is the moving in of the new family, the spooks beginning to happen, one of them getting possessed, an exorcism, a backstory of the ghosts having agonizing deaths, and the final retribution. Or not. What's different, then? Nothing.

Okay, some might say they did not say the final twist coming. I did not either. But it did not make me go 'wow' in amazement. Instead, it made me roll my eyes, for the twist did not seem like something the makers had in mind from the start, but it seemed like some kind of plot device to wrap the film up. There was no foreshadowing which is essential to make a twist work. That is one of the biggest failings of the story.

The post-interval part is full of gimmickry, which is another big letdown. Instead of allowing the plot to develop organically or the characters to have some chemistry between them, the makers resort to cliched jump-scares. Yes, flickering lights, moving curtains, someone bringing a hand slowly from behind and putting it on someone's shoulder, things turning upside-down... you name it, and the film has that cliche. It just gets frustrating after a while and you can actually predict the jump-scare that is going to happen.

Mind you, I was sitting in a practically empty theater (only 7 or 8 people, of which 2 left post-interval) and none of the scares made even the slightest dent in me.

The film falters majorly in the writing department. The exorcism should have come a bit towards the end rather than pre-interval; that would have had better impact on the film.

It was also sad to see a fine actor like Atul Kulkarni over-acting in at least two scenes. But it did not appear to be his fault. To me, it appeared to be rather the failing of the director in explaining the character to this otherwise amazing actor.

Siddharth is good overall. It is he that pulls the film through (and Anisha Victor in the first half).

Sad that the film did not live its hype for me.

This film has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it is totally deserving of that score. This is the only Indian horror film I've seen that is actually terrifying. My only complaint is that there is a scene at the end of the film involving eyes with multiple irises that seems ripped off from The Exorcist TV series.