Romancham

The year 2007, on the outskirts of Bengaluru. Seven single men share a house. None has proper work, the rent has piled up and the landlord is at the door. They are bored. One of them has an idea: they will make an Ouija board. His purpose is not serious; he wants to trick his housemates and get a girl's number. They set the board up and the game begins. A name comes out. Then strange things start happening in the house and the man who began the joke cannot stop what he set going. Jithu Madhavan writes and directs; it is his first feature. Soubin Shahir and Sajin Gopu are in the cast. The language is Malayalam. The story comes out of something the director lived; he described a similar incident from the period when he shared a house with friends in Bengaluru. It was made on a low budget and took an unexpected success at the box office, becoming one of the most discussed Malayalam productions of its year. What the narrative builds is the passage between horror and comedy; the film does not separate them and uses both in the same scene. The cast is largely made up of unknown actors and the scenes in the house feel close to improvisation. Its strongest side is the rhythm the seven build together; the characters are not written separately but the group works. Its limit is structure; the plot speeds up in the second half and the explanatory section is rushed. Who it is for: viewers who like Malayalam comedy and the mixture of horror and comedy. Who it is not for: the humour is local, the characters shallow, and the horror element light.