Movie Review: Ek Thi Daayan

A spooky flick set in present-day Mumbai cannot but be an unusual kettle of fish. The stylishly mounted Ek Thi Daayan is about witches and ghouls all right, but the film unfolds primarily in an old metropolitan housing society over which looms spirits of the dead that refuse to leave the premises.

The first half of the film is a humdinger – it makes for absolutely riveting viewing. Many of the shocks that it delivers catch the audience unawares, eliciting involuntary whoops and screams. But Ek This Daayan does not end quite as impressively as it begins.

The male protagonist is an illusionist named Bobo (Emraan Hashmi). He is haunted by memories of a disturbed childhood and a force he cannot quite comprehend begins to big time play tricks on him.

So, unbeknownst to his girlfriend, Tamara (Huma Qureshi), the magician consults the family psychiatrist.

Through regression hypnosis, the doc helps the man dig up secrets of the past that take him back to the apartment he grew up in and where he lost his little sister in a mishap that he believes was caused by his stepmother, Diana (Konkona Sen Sharma).      

Cut back to the present: even as his would-be wife grapples with the inexplicable turn of events, the flummoxed magician is confronted with a mysterious stranger, Lisa Dutt (Kalki Koechlin), who claims to be his biggest fan.  

On the evidence of the first half, it is easy to vouch for the fact that debutant director Kannan Iyer is a promising talent. Unfortunately, the screenplay divulges its principal tropes a bit too early in the game for the story to retain its edge all the way to the end.

As a result, the climax is the only part of the film where the fear factor does not yield results – by this point the audience knows exactly what is in store. The strength of a horror film lies in the surprises that it springs – the second half of Ek This Daayan has too few.

Be that as it may, the script by Vishal Bhardwaj and Mukul Sharma (on whose story the film is based) eschews the standard conventions of the genre for the most part, blending Gothic literature and German Expressionism with the essence of hoary horror stories culled from native folklore.    

But for the bland denouement, Ek Thi Daayan is a watchable film, livened up by a clutch of great performances. Hashmi lends an air of lingering mystery to the man obsessed with the occult, while the three actresses who play the women in his life are all at the top of their game.

Also noteworthy are the cameos by Rajatava Dutta (the psychiatrist) and Pavan Malhotra (the hero’s professor father). 

Ek This Daayan is certainly above-average fare as a horror film. Its dark mood is sustained with the aid of dimly lit frames and an apt background score. But its dread of the dead doesn't quite chill the spine.