418 movie review: Prashanth Neel-backed Yakshagana horror film struggles to scare
The Indian Express · Yashaswini Sri ·
418 movie review and ratings: Prashanth Neel-presented 418 builds an effectively eerie atmosphere and delivers a genuinely moving backstory through Chaithra J Achar's performance as Devika. But the film's length and its convoluted climax is its undoing.
418 movie review: A locked room only works as a horror device if what is behind it is worth the wait. The audience will tolerate the slow build, the unanswered questions, the hallways shot in low light, only if the reveal justifies the patience. The contract between a horror film and its audience is simple: scare me now, or promise me something worth being scared of later. Break that contract and no amount of sound design or dark corridors will save the film. 418, the Prashanth Neel-presented horror thriller, fails to honour this, other than in its middle act that the rest of the film does not deserve.
The year is 2020, just before the Covid-19 lockdown. A new batch of students arrives at VIMS, a medical college in a remote part of coastal Karnataka. Among them is Vivek, a young man whose parents bring him to the hostel and leave him in a building that was originally a mental asylum. Room No. 418, the room adjacent to where Vivek and his roommate Rohith are living, is locked and off-limits. No one explains why. The college counsellor, played by Ramesh Indira, offers vague warnings.
Eventually, the ghostly presence is revealed to be of Devika, a Yakshagana artist whose life was destroyed by forces she could not fight. Chaithra J Achar carries the film and is superb as Devika. Her character is given genuine depth, and she plays the part with a conviction that goes beyond what the screenplay gives her. She brings a physical specificity to the Yakshagana performance sequences and her emotional range in the flashback section is the primary reason those 40 minutes work as well as they do. When the film works, it is almost entirely because of her.
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