Masand's Verdict: Phoonk gimmicky, not spooky

SCREAMER: Phoonk is the kind of film that plays with sound to give you a scare.

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Cast: Sudeep, Amruta Khanvilkar, Ahsaas Channa, Shrey Bawa, Jyothi Subhash, Ashwini Kaleskar, Kenny Desai, Ganesh Yadav, Lileete Dubey, K. K Raina, Zakir Hussain, Javed Rizvi, Anu Ansari, Shankar Sachdev, Kishore Kadam, Bharat Kaul

Director: Ram Gopal Verma

Right off the bat let's make one thing very clear -- Ramgopal Varma's Phoonk is not your classic horror film that'll send a shiver down your spine. It's a cheap gimmick of a film and I mean that in the best way. In fact, as far as gimmicks go, it's a pretty good one.

Phoonk is the kind of film that plays with sound to give you a scare. It's the kind of film in which booming background score will lead up to moments where characters turn around and find they were spooked by their own reflection in the mirror. It's the kind of film where the director will take all sorts of cheesy liberties like showing a character's hand grow unnaturally long to scare another character, but it turns out to be a dream.

Phoonk keeps you glued to your seat for most part of the film, and that alone is both its intention and its success.

The film's about a well-to-do builder and his family, who find themselves unable to understand the horrible things that happen to them suddenly. Torn between his own atheism, and the belief of everyone around him that supernatural forces may have a hand in the family's misfortunes, the man of the house digs deeper to discover uncomfortable truths.