13 B Reviewed

13 B may signal the coming of age of horror genre in bollywood movies but accentuates the failure of a solid storyline in hindi movies.

the story in a nutshell is that Manohar aka Mannu shifts to a new home encountering great hurdles and has a huge loan yet to be paid but is surfeit with the happiness which has ensued owing to that. everything goes hunky dory till a few eerie incidents take place which impel him to believe something amiss in his house. the suspicion turns all the more when he sees the programme ("sab khairyat")which his family regularly watches and of which he is hitherto overtly cynical.the events in the programme happen to match just what starts to happen to him and then he comes to realise that the programme is only telecast in his home and nowhere else. thats when he comes to know of a supernatural intervention in his abode. how he encounters these extra human elements forms the engrossing part of the story.

Firstly the positives.

The movie even without the use of gory murders,portentous roars and inexplicable scowls goes on to make u feel uncanny and scares you in certain sequences irrespective of the fact how strong hearted you may be.Madhavan is again praiseworthy and will stay in many a directors heart in mumbai as he has down south.Poonam Dhillon hasnt jaded a single bit and is as beautiful as she was 20 years ago.She carries off the role of Madhavan's mother with panache.Neetu Chandra again is conspicuous despite a very cornered role.After oye lucky and traffic signal she again fits in the role of the wife perfectly.Sachin Khadekar inadvertently shows whose the most senior actor in the film with his remarkable acting.The Subhash chandra bose actor seems to just move into the shoes of his character in any movie.
The sound effects make for a scary feel. Camera angles are applaudible.the movie enthralls one and exhorts one to stay at the seat throughout and this plus point has come up after quite a while in a bollywood movie which tend to sag half way down the runtime.

Negative points are headed by the repetition of eye close ups throughout the film. it is unfathomable as to how eye close ups will scare even the most captivated watcher.the rain and thunder effects are avoidable since people have grown over them and dey arent terrifying anymore.the ending isnt happy which couldve been so and left the audience go back home with a feel good explanation of the movie. another major shortcoming of the film is that although the intended scary scenes might be to their objective but they appear very sporadically throughout the movie. the viewer needed to be intimidated more. if comapred to a hollywood horror movie like say The Ring it stands nowhere but still its better than major hindi horror films.

considering the mesmerizing and dazzling pace and intuitiveness which the film induces it isnt a bad watch after all.
ill go with 2.5 on 5 for dis new age horror flick. watch it once and you wont rue.