DVD Review

Over the weekend, I saw two Malayalam movies on dvd, they were radically different and I enjoyed them both. The first one was "Nottam," with Nedumidi Venu and Jagathy giving solid performances. Venu is a Koodiyattam dancer, and Jagathy is his assistant. The movie is simple and has excellent music by M. Jayachandran. The songs "Pacha Pannantathe..." and "Mayangi Poyyi..." are superb. This is one of the most underrated Malayalam movies in recent times and as it did not boast of a stellar star cast it hardly had a theatrical release. Watch this movie.

Moonamathoral, starring Jayaram, Samvritha, Sherin, Vineeth, and others is a brilliant attempt at horror, I really fail to understand how this movie bombed at the box office. The movie starts with a police officer looking at two figures hanging by the noose from a tree.

Two young and beautiful nurses move into a nice cottage on the edge of the woods, a mysterious boy chasing his tennis ball keeps appearing and disappearing, one of the girls sees a mysterious lady dressed in white-Jyothirmayee. When Samvritha is frightened, Sherin ridicules her. Meanwhile Samvritha is too shy to reveal her love for Vineeth the psychiatrist.

One day Sherin also sees the lady in white, after taking a bath, and is scared out of her wits. The two girls rush to meet Vineeth, thinking he might help them. Now comes the best part, the two girls go to Vineeth's house and call him, he does not hear them, and continues to read his newspaper, and then throws it on to the table. The girls are perplexed and glance at the newspaper; it has their photos with a caption that they are dead. I do not know if this is an original idea or if it is ripped from some foreign movie, but it is one good idea. Kudos to director V.K. Prakash.

Then we are introduced to the police officer Jayaram and his wife Jyothirmayee, who is a novelist. They stay in the same house where the girls stayed. Now Jyothirmayee sees the spirits of Sherin and Samvritha and is possessed by their spirits and goes into a trance like stage from time to time. Jayaram takes his wife to the psychiatrist Vineeth, who gives her some sedatives and advises Jayaram to move to another house. Jyothirmayee sees the framed photographs of Samvritha and Sherin in the hospital and faints. She informs Jayaram that the photo resembles the spirits she sees.

Jayaram investigates the death of the two girls, a flashback shows the dead bodies shown in the first scene to be the corpses of Samvritha and Sherin. Jayaram visits Vineeth and congratulates him as Vineeth is scheduled to go to Australia the following day. Vineeth thinks about the incidents and in a flashback we are shown Vineeth killing Samvritha and Sherin. Then we are shown Jyothirmayee stalking Vineeth, Vineeth escapes from her clutches and runs in the pouring rain in the darkness of the night.

We are shown a shot of Jayaram escorting Jyothirmayee in a jeep. Vineeth returns to his house and sees a crowd, outside it. He sees a dead body covered with a white cloth, he moves closer to have a glimpse of the corpse. The face is uncovered and he is shocked to see his own face.

A flashback shows Jyothirmayee stabbing Vineeth.

This is one movie, sans lots of bloodshed, and really holds your suspense.

Two thumbs up.