The Haunting Review - Haunts You Enough, But With Old Cliches

Amazon MiniTV's horror short, The Haunting, directed by Tanveer Bookwala, sees Erica Fernandes, Gul Panag, and Prakruti Mishra in the lead roles. The horror genre is about 101 years old, if I have to consider only sensational movies. Nosferatu (1922) makes it exactly 101 years since I believe The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920) is more into the psychological zone than ghost horror. The cliches were mainly made in the 1930s, in the talkie era, when James Whale brought a revolution with his classic movies. Then I have certain films that can be called benchmarks, such as Dead Of Night (1945) and Night Of The Demon (1957) or children-driven horror flicks like Village of the Damned (1960) and The Innocent (1961), and then we moved to a zombie zone with Night of the Living Dead (1968) and then The Evil Dead franchise. Films like The Golem (1920), Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1931), Dr. Jekyll And Hyde (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), The Wolf Man (1941), The Uninvited (1944), The Body Snatcher (1945), The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945) and the Abott & Costello spoofs are deliberately kept aside because sub-genres like horror comedy, sci-fi horror, psychological horror, and Gothic horror are not a topic of discussion here. Well, the current generation knows all the modern ones like The Exorcist, Jaws, Veerana, Purana Mandir, The Conjuring Universe and others. But when you talk about cliches and where they came from, you have to look back at those old classics I mentioned above; otherwise, it would be like taking only half knowledge and pretending to have everything (who knows, even I might have missed many horror classics. Lol.). As Tanveer said that he was obsessed with Ramsay Bros' films like Veerana, so yes, The Haunting is in the same zone with a modern touch. Yes, it haunts you enough, but the old cliches are anything but scary. If you aren't aware of them, then you're lucky, and you can enjoy The Haunting more than I did.The short film is about Maushmi (Erica Fernandes), who has been quite unstable since the demise of her sister. As the constable describes the five steps of the sorcery of a pyaasi aatma, you get the sense that she is being turned into a demon. Right from getting a call from her dead sister, on-off lights, hearing screams, hallucinations, and seeing the demon in its most scary avatar, Maushmi literally goes mad in the process. Needless to say, shifting the house does not help, and people around her do not believe her, be it her BFF, a counsellor, or even a cop. The Haunting is basically about the process of hunting and feeling how frightening it can be. As expected, it has to be a girl because then only you can get that scare factor done right and bring the natural substance and notion together.The script is dated, for sure, but it's modern. Well, that's the problem. Why too modern. Every modern thing has to have some vulgar elements and beep words, and so The Haunting backfires on its own creativity. The conversation between two girls can be sophisticated and intelligent sometimes, but I wonder if today's writers know it or not. "Tumhare naseeb me to sirf mere saath Sona likha hai".. oh gee.. The way they talk about boyfriend/crush and that "Bitch Please!" Come on, even Ramsay films had better dialogue than this. Ramsay flicks had to have some sultry content because they wanted to sell the film, a low-budget and mediocre film to be precise, but do we need to do that in 2023? Ask this question to yourself—as a writer, director, actor, and viewer—and I assure you the majority will say "NO". So, the heroine has to look, then. Veerana's Jasmine was a one-film wonder, but she was an "absolute wonder" before disappearing into Veerana of Life. But I still see her in Facebook and Instagram memes and feel nostalgic. Tanveer's The Haunting is far from that while using the sex appeal of the leading heroine. It's more into the offensive zone if one has to compare the arithmetic of regular masala used in horror flicks. After all, you have to inject some sense and logic into the characters, which is missing here. The scene of Prakruti jumping from the balcony was cropped up to her legs on upside down, and how absurd it looked. I know it was because of the low budget, and the scene would have needed a lot of VFX work, but that's one of your most important scenes. How can you compromise with that? The money was rather spent on creating some creatures and option faces, and they are really good (loading one of Erica's scenes).Erica Fernandes cannot be Jasmine (no one can be Jasmine, man), but she is not bad either. I loved her in that interrogation scene with her red nose and overly sensitive skin expressions, but the rest of the time, all those jump scares were so typical. The ghost is always behind you when you try to look around or down; the lights will go off suddenly; the person will have so many problems inside the home, yet he/she will come back home and find himself/herself alone at night and bla bla. I mean, who doesn't know these formulas? In a short time, Erica just doesn't get out of this typicality. The same happens with Gul Panag, who is too beautiful to be a counsellor. The screen space is unexpectedly smaller. Prakruti Mishra too looks hot, but the urban touch spoils the sensitivity of her character. Amitabh Ghanekar's Hawaldar is somewhat chilling but too roughly cut. Tanveer Bookwala's fanboy moments are clearly visible as he uses the background score, cinematography, visuals, and actors' expressions to create an atmosphere of fear, just like in the old days. The newness is missing, though. This one is just another contemporary and mainstream attempt rather than a pathbreaking one. The short runtime took away his liberty of trying different things, but overall, it's an average, watchable one. I was lucky to catch the screening on a big screen and in an auditorium where I could feel things better, but I'm afraid if the small screen will reduce the impact for you, and most probably it will, and it's nothing unnatural like ghosts.