What makes a horror film goosebump-inducing? It builds an atmosphere of fear and foreboding, makes you jump out of your seat often, ensures you watch many parts of it through the gaps of your fingers and plays on your mind long after you’ve walked out of the theatre. The House Next Door ticks all these boxes — and then some more — to come up with chills and thrills that will definitely make you look over your shoulder for the next few days or keep the table lamp on for the next few nights. Most likely, you will do both.
Released as Aval in Tamil last Friday, The House Next Door is that rare Indian horror film that doesn’t resort to masala backstory or mumbo jumbo to spook the viewer. Instead it builds up a spine-tingling horror fest using the everyday and the innocuous — the chair that you just sat on, the car that you just parked outside, the mirror you just looked at....
The film, directed by Milind Rau, scores outright with its setting: the fictional town of Rosina set at the foothills of the Himalayas is postcard-pretty, but its dark and deep valleys hide many a secret. It’s here that brain surgeon Krish Acharya (Siddharth) and his wife Lakshmi (Andrea Jeremiah) lead a happy life. One morning, the D’Costa family moves into the house next door and though everything seems fine at the beginning with the neighbours spending a lot of time together, the fun and games grind to a halt on the night of the housewarming party when Jenny (Anisha Victor) — the elder daughter of the house and a rebellious teen — “throws” herself into the well on the premises. She’s brought out in the nick of time, but then on, matters spiral out of control with Jenny convulsing into fits, behaving as if in a trance, getting violent often and claiming that she feels a presence in the house. As is the case with all horror films, her misgivings are initially dismissed by her family, especially dad Paul (Atul Kulkarni), but things soon go south with the evil spirits in the house not only tormenting the D’Costa family, but also Krish and Lakshmi.
The House Next Door resorts to all the tropes familiar to the genre, but scores in the way it uses them. Siddharth, who has co-written as well as co-produced the film, pays homage to some of the most iconic themes and templates of the horror genre — the chilling image of the spirit lurking by the bed will remind you of The Grudge, the dilapidated well is, of course, from The Ring, and the petrifying exorcism scene (guaranteed to bring your palm to your mouth a few times) is a fitting tribute to Regan MacNeil’s cult exorcism scene in The Exorcist. In fact, Jenny is shown reading The Exorcist in more than one scene.
With a taut first half, The House Next Door sets itself up well and while the mystery unravels intriguingly post-interval, a few snips at the edit table — 140 minutes is way too long for a film that aims to keep your butt perpetually at the end of your plex seat — would have made it an even more breathless ride. The performances — Siddharth to Atul Kulkarni to Andrea Jeremiah — are top-notch, but it’s young Anisha who steals the spotlight in all the scenes she appears in. The twist in the tail is nicely done and the last shot screams ‘sequel’, giving us a genuine horror film after all the Raaz rubbish we have been subjected to all these years. Go watch... but wait, what’s that behind you?!
Priyanka Roy
On a spook scale of 10, how would you rate The House Next Door? Tell t2@abp.in
