Lapachhapi aka Hide and Seek [dir. Vishal Furia]

In the long history of Indian cinema, horror has always been less served. This is probably because horror is the genre that suffers most from the potluck style of movie-making mainstream Indian cinema has predominantly followed. For a film to be effective as horror, a certain purity of approach becomes essential. Thankfully, in the past decade or thereabouts, we have seen an uptick in 'pure horror' features, and even ones where horror is blended with other genres, it is done without cheapening. Of the ones I have seen and recall:

• Tumbbad (2018) - An immersive folk horror from Rahi Anil Barve. It has a demon, but the most frightening monster in it is human greed.
• Kaul - A Calling (2016) - Aadish Keluskar's Marathi debut feature is that rare species, an evocative piece of existential nihilism that recalls the contemporary horror fiction of Thomas Ligotti and Vilas Sarang. Sadly, it also has the availability of an OOP Ligotti or Vilas Sarang work.
• Pizza (2012) - This Karthik Subbaraj venture is a few rungs below the mastery of the above names, but for its time, a refreshingly serious attempt at an eerie movie.
• Pisaasu (2014) - With shades of A. Vincent's Malayalam classic Bhargavi Nilayam, mad wiz Mysskin mixes horror and romance (from beyond the grave), finally going into territory that, without obvious spoilers, recalls a cult Brad Anderson film.
• 13B: Fear Has a New Address (2009) - It begins with an inauspicious retread of bog standard haunted flat tropes, and there are avoidable song breaks, but the central plot of Vikram Kumar's multi-lingual is a clever play on India's obsession with television soaps, and the climax doesn't pull the punches.

Still only a handful, so when I was recommended by trustworthy sources to watch new director Vishal Furia's Lapachhapi as another homegrown example of pure horror I was intrigued enough to actually buy a one-month Zee5 subscription (which carries its own horror story, but that's for later).

After a disturbing prologue in a rural field involving a heavily pregnant woman and some kids, the film puts us inside a car in which a married couple - Neha and Tushar - are traveling to a remote location. Their discussions reveal that the husband has been forced to go on the run from violent creditors, and an aged subordinate at his workplace has offered to house them in his village till the matter blows over. The connection with the prologue is made when they reach the location of the colleague's village...and yes, Neha is heavily pregnant.

A good amount of time is spent establishing the setting of this temporary home. It is a lone one-storey rough-hewn rural house in the middle of a sugarcane field with a confusing maze of narrow-cut paths; shrouded in silence and suffocating alienation, this choice of location for a spooky film is gold. Even a simple walk amidst these surroundings with only the company of ambient sounds has the potential to arouse a delicious sensation of dread.

Then there is Tulsabai, the wife of Tushar's benefactor and self-appointed caretaker to Neha. She is all maternal kindness to start with, making Neha feel at home and attending to all her needs, but is that the end of it? There is an ambiguity to her character, which over the course of the narrative makes for some of Lapachhapi's strongest moments.

When Tushar talks about going back to the city to do a temporary recce leaving Neha in the care of their hosts, horror fans know it's the signal for weird events to happen, and they do. Knocks on doors, elusive children running around, a portable cassette player with a scratchy playtime tune. These events lead to conflict between Neha and Tulsabai, which erupts into a virile display of horror theatrics, including a genuinely spooky tantrik scene. Lapachhapi is at its best here, in its depiction of Neha's disorientation. We do not know if the interactions between her and a quicksilver Tulsabai are real or hallucinations in the pregnant woman's mind. It helps that the casting is immaculate - Pooja Sawant as Neha and veteran Usha Naik as Tulsabai are center-stage for most of the film and give involved performances. Excellent use is made of the setting and the night-time photography is evocative.

I wish it were all positive, but Lapachhapi is not without flaws. For one the running time (approximately 2 hours) is stretched well beyond need. I can understand that a rhythm and sense of locale is being established, and a modicum of repetition is required to acclimatize the viewer, but even with these considerations, the film could have done with some serious trimming of 20-25 min. I had mentioned earlier that the remote and lonely setting is in itself unsettling, but it would appear that the makers did not have sufficient faith in the idea; the first half is full of instances where they try to raise horror by use of stock dread music every time Neha turns a corner or looks toward a door/window, to the point it becomes annoying. And while the overall story arc does have a justifiable stance against female infanticide, it would have been nice to employ a less strident tone at the end, considering Neha's still vulnerable predicament. That said, even with these flaws, fans of Indian horror are encouraged to check Lapachhapi out where they can...

...which currently means, facing the horror that is the Zee5 app. The very idea of a streaming app that fails to support basic casting to a television or AV receiver is in this day and age a shocker. The Zee5 app shows a cast button but tapping it will only generate a blank screen on your TV display while the video continues to play on the phone. This is an issue confirmed by multiple users on forums. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am not one to watch movies on a phone. I had to compromise by logging into the website on my PC browser and watching with headphones. While the bulk of the experience was okay, there was 1-2 instances where the film froze and refused to go ahead till I skipped a bit (streaming equivalent of a scratched disc?) The provided English subtitles are tiny and I could not find any option to adjust the size. Also, they seemed to have been incompetently formatted, frequently getting clipped, and sometimes using wrong words (On occasion, Bhaurao became Bhalerao and Tulsabai became Tulsi). While some of the blame would lie with the studio that formatted the film for streaming, I am certainly not enthused to scroll through Zee5's offerings to even recoup the cost of my 99rs 1-month subscription.