It being October, I'm watching a bunch of horror films, and 'Tumbbad' came unto my radar due to imdb's recommendation system. Since I'm not well versed in Indian cinema, I thought it'd be neat to watch a well-rated Bollywood flick as to subvert any possible expectations.
The story and premise behind this horror/monster flick is pretty good. Ancient legends speak of a goddess who bore another 160 million gods (Indian mythology tends to be like that), the first god borne (named Hastar) is a greedy bastage and wants to take all sustenance (gold and wheat in this case) for himself and is shunned and (sort of) banished to the Goddess' womb for it.
Vanayak is the main character and the plot follows his journey from his youth to his eventual demise. He finds out the actual location of the Godesses' womb and robs Hastar with some trickery throughout the film.
I'd say the actual plot is quite flat, despite the premise. Greed is the obvious theme throughout the proceedings and (almost) every character is thus inflicted with a healthy dose of avarice (exception being the very last scene). And while such characters don't have to be necessarily unsympathetic, I found it hard to sympathize with any of the awful people in the film, which was part of why I didn't enjoy it a lot.
Despite the thin plot and unlikable characters, there's a lot of good to be said about the production design and cinematography. Gorgeous shots of Indian landscapes and architecture keep the visuals interesting and while not all the special effects wowed me, I appreciated the scarcity of CGI.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's not really scary, which is the main thing I'm looking for in a horror film. As such, I can't really recommend this as a scary movie, but it's originality and visuals at least made it memorable.
6/10.
The story and premise behind this horror/monster flick is pretty good. Ancient legends speak of a goddess who bore another 160 million gods (Indian mythology tends to be like that), the first god borne (named Hastar) is a greedy bastage and wants to take all sustenance (gold and wheat in this case) for himself and is shunned and (sort of) banished to the Goddess' womb for it.
Vanayak is the main character and the plot follows his journey from his youth to his eventual demise. He finds out the actual location of the Godesses' womb and robs Hastar with some trickery throughout the film.
I'd say the actual plot is quite flat, despite the premise. Greed is the obvious theme throughout the proceedings and (almost) every character is thus inflicted with a healthy dose of avarice (exception being the very last scene). And while such characters don't have to be necessarily unsympathetic, I found it hard to sympathize with any of the awful people in the film, which was part of why I didn't enjoy it a lot.
Despite the thin plot and unlikable characters, there's a lot of good to be said about the production design and cinematography. Gorgeous shots of Indian landscapes and architecture keep the visuals interesting and while not all the special effects wowed me, I appreciated the scarcity of CGI.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's not really scary, which is the main thing I'm looking for in a horror film. As such, I can't really recommend this as a scary movie, but it's originality and visuals at least made it memorable.
6/10.