Darr @The Mall

Picture this. The screen is black. Slowly the camera starts zooming out, forming a whitish circle. In a couple of seconds, you see a familiar painting of something or someone with his mouth wide open - as wide as it can get. And then the more educated quizzers will say, "wait a second. This is Edvard Munch's SCREAM". That's the shot with which DARR @ THE MALL begins.

Unfortunately for Pawan Kriplani (Ragini MMS), his 2nd horror flick turns out to be scary only in parts. The horror or should I say, the attempt at it, is unfortunately lost out in the elaborate and rather unnecessary narration in the first half. Munch's masterpiece was one of the high points. That should give you a reasonable idea about how average or below that, is this intuitively named movie (notice the sarcasm).

Including the on-duty guard from a week back, Rajendra Solanki, 9 people have been found dead at the newly opened Amity Mall (I hope I have the name right).  Before he dies, Rajendra apparently recommends a certain Vishnu Sharma (Jimmy Shergill) for his role.  Maybe he had an inclination of his imminent exit from the mall or should I say this world?  Much like this loose end, there are several others that scream to be knotted.

To begin with, when there have been 9 deaths and an desolate mall, why would the mall owners not get some external help or beef up the security or ensure that the security teams are in pairs.  Instead, the frugal owners ensure that there is a head of security and 1 guard through the day.  How considerate of them.  If that wasn’t idiotic enough, there is an elaborate party organized which has all of 8-10 bouncers as security.

Despite the news of the haunted mall being splashed across the country side, several people turn up for the festivities.  The children of 2 of the stake owners along with their friends decide to make the mall their playground as if they are blissfully unaware of the happenings.  In between all of this, when the chief stake owner Sahni, moves out of the party under very suspicious circumstances, no one bothers to even follow him.

Add to it some really sad dialogues like, “Tumhe nahin lagta hai ki hamare dono papa khufiye hain.  Rhymes with you know what….” Picture my hands reaching into the screen trying to strangle Nushrat Bharucha & Shradha Koul.  Really the ghost nun who is always in flames was never required.

The dialogue delivery is disjointed and ill timed.  No one except Shergill gives signs of knowing how to act.  Even the otherwise acceptable Nushrat Bharucha or the seasoned Arif Zakaria look totally disinterested.  The first half is unnecessarily stretched out with several attempts to scare the audience.  Some of these attempts succeed but overall, they remain attempts.  4 on 10.  Watch at home if you really want to.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nJ4QjL9YI