Vichitram, directed by Achu Vijayan, is definitely following a template that is familiar to us. But it isn’t a movie that is devoid of craft. In every horror movie with a ghost, there will be a part that will show a detailed flashback about what happened. Even though there is a lack of clarity in the beginning portions of Vichitram, the efforts to narrate the flashback in a slightly tweaked manner make Vichitram an appreciable effort with flaws.
Jasmine and her five sons are the main characters in this story. Alexander, Jasmine’s elder brother, was the one who lived on Jasmine’s ancestral property. Jasmine’s love marriage made her leave that house long back. But at one point, Alexander died, and Jasmine and her family came back to the property. But that house had some surprises left for them, and we see those unexpected encounters in the movie.
Written by Nikhil Raveendran and Vineeth Jose, Vichitram is not devoid of cliches of the genre. But one can see their effort to have a slightly different sensibility in the making. There is no gory face here to create a jump-scare moment. In fact, the movie takes a lot of time to enter that scary movie space. Even though it felt like a change, one could see the script lingering on the humorous dynamic between the siblings for far too long. Almost the entire first half of the film is consumed by these funny bits, which are there to establish the equation within the family.
The soul of this film lies in the second half, and the creative efforts are more evident in that part of the movie. Nikhil and Vineeth create a loop of events with metaphors to support them, and the film smartly conveys a back story without necessarily filming flashback footage. The parallels between the rabbits and the victims were used smartly to make us feel for the characters. The placement of the animals in the story had a parallel narrative of its own, but unfortunately, the crowdedness of the script comes in the way of understanding that layer. The film’s background score was totally in sync with the film’s mood.
Shine Tom Chacko as the always high elder son Jackson was convincing. The tensions of that character and his angry outbursts looked real on screen. Balu Varghese gets to play a typical character that was entirely in his safe zone. Jolly Chirayath as Jasmine gets a very prominent role in this film, and she performed it very neatly. Ketaki Narayan and Kani Kusruti played crucial characters in the movie, and the duo’s on-screen chemistry was palpable. Lal was in his usual zone as this panicking father figure.
Vichitram is a mixed-bag haunted house thriller that has sporadic moments where it tries to break away from the viewer’s predictions. But the distribution is uneven, and you would feel that the victims deserved a little more screen time than the tantrums of those aimless siblings.
Even though there is a lack of clarity in the beginning portions of Vichitram, the efforts to narrate the flashback in a slightly tweaked manner make Vichitram an appreciable effort with flaws.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
