Winter is jaded

The success of horror films depends mostly on whether it can generate the amount of fear we anticipated and making the story plausible, if not logical.

If measured on such a scale, the Malayalam film Winter -- written and directed by Dipu, and starring Jayaram -- falls somewhere in between. It is because the narrative is confused. It is not sure whether the director wishes to be a true horror film or a logical psychopathic tale where everything is explained, and the loose ends are tied in the climax.

Dr Ramdas (Jayaram) is working as a surgeon in a multi-speciality hospital in Hyderabad. He has a problem; one of his young daughters is depressed due to the claustrophobic environs of the apartment system. So on the advice of a psychiatrist played by Manoj K Jayan, he finds a specious bungalow on the outskirts of the city.

This marks the beginning of the things we are too familiar with happening in a horror film -- from an overflowing toilet to a missing kid to the gruesome killing of the pet. In between, there is effort to give scientific validity to Vastu Shastra.

There are a few genuinely scary moments but they fail to make a sustained impact. Then there is an overt effort to pacify the rationalist in the audience with lot of mumbo jumbo about psychopaths.

Every actor seems to be sleepwalking through his/her part. We can feel the lack of interest in every performance whether it be Jayaram or Bhavana (Jayaram's wife; wearing a sari and a huge dot on the forehead, that is one of the unintended shocker of this film).

The film has a jaded feel to it, maybe because it was languishing in the cans for the last couple of years.

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