112. Ezra; movie review

EZRA
Cert 15
145 mins
BBFC advice: Contains sustained supernatural threat

Watching three Indian movies during one day requires a decent amount of stamina because they are so damned long.
At least I persuaded Mrs W to join me for Jayakrishnan's supernatural horror Ezra at Nottingham Cineworld so she could have nudged me if I had dropped off.
As it happened I didn't anyway but I was torn on the film - it demonstrated how far Malayalam pictures have come in terms of production values but, unfortunately, reached for too many of the horror cliches which I bemoaned as recently as last week.
Its premise is that a young couple (Prithviraj Sukumaran and Priya Anand) have moved to the city of Kochi because of his job promotion.
While hubby is at work, his wife goes in search of antiques which will make their new house a home and alights on a fascinating Jewish keepsake box, unaware that its contents have already played a part in the death of a shop assistant.
And, sure enough, as soon as she takes it home and unlocks it, all hell lets loose.
Only a week ago, I wrote about my irritation that so many haunted house films have similar threads. I am afraid Ezra, although better presented than most, falls for umpteen cliches.
So, there is the ghostly image of a girl (how many times have we seen that!), the loud steps across the attic, the supposedly scary image in a bathroom mirror and lots of levitation.
To be fair, there are elements of Ezra which do work and it was unusual for representing the Jewish community of India which I had not seen before.
In addition, I was rather taken with both Sukumaran and Anand who have to skip through a wide range of emotions during Ezra.
Horrors are not nearly as popular in Indian cinema as they are in the West so I accept that my criticism of repetition is more broadbrush that Jayakrishnan may deserve.
Interestingly, it has a very high rating on Internet Movie Database and has been very popular in the Indian box office, indicating that it is actually a bit of a break-out of the Malayalam norms.
And Mrs W is not usually a fan of horrors but she was engrossed until what she described as its 'ridiculous conclusion'.

Reasons to watch: passable horror with a spark of originality
Reasons to avoid: too many cliches and daft conclusion

Laughs: none
Jumps: two
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 6.5/10


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