Prithiviraj , the hero of this movie is not a new entrant into the horror genre , In fact this is his second outing .The first one was ' Vellinakshtathram ' an overtly cheesy and tepid horror movie directed by Vinayan .
Ezra tries to be different . It tries to replicate the scenes from the western horror movies its clearly 'inspired' from . Some scenes are hilarious like the ghostly girl who jump scares priya . The actual Ghost/Demon in the movie; Ezra is male . This sticks out like a sore thumb..The scenes in the attic are similar to that in insidious and conjuring.
Today's younger audience have already seen all these jump scares before .There are a horde of movies now coming in this genre like Conjuring ,Annabelle, , Insidious etc ....
The story initially felt eerily similar to that of manichithrathazhu ,where nakulan returns to his hometown with wife ganga due to a company posting . They both live in huge dilapidated bungalows. Both priya and ganga are lonely and their husbands are too busy with their professional work to even care about their wife's needs and feelings . But in the 1993 classic the reason of haunting was ganga's psychosis whereas in ezra , it is really supernatural.
Prithviraj' plays a nuclear waste management expert( well thats new !) and lives with his wife Priya who is from a malayali family settled in mumbai. A promotion requires him to relocate to kerala cochin which unsettles his wife as she has to leave all her near and dear ones to live in an unfamiliar place . In order to keep herself busy she goes shopping for antiques to decorate their new house (which looks quite dirty and in ruins. How does an modern couple choose such a house beats me. In one scene where priya washes her face in the bathroom , you can clearly see a tonne of dust on the pipe.. this inspite of having a stay at home servant and no kids !
In one of her shopping jaunts she comes across and purchases an antique jewish box which unknown to her houses a demon-Dybbuk. She brings it home and opens it out of womanly curiosity and then like the pandora's story all hell breaks loose.... In manichithrathazhu it was the opening of the thekkini which unleashed the persona of nagavalli.
To introduce a jewish demon called Dybbuk may sound inventive considering the presence of a jewish community in kochi, but its nothing new .A 2012 movie 'possession ' had did it before . Also this shows the minuscule Jewish community in bad light as black magicians.
Talking of performances, its best described as average. Prithviraj tries hard to get in tune with the character but is only partly successful . Tovino turned in his a wooden appearance. . Maybe he wasn't given much material to work on. The heroine was good looking but nothing more .
The major failure was the exorcist/rabbi played by sujith sankar. Inspite of getting a meaty role he could not do justice to it .His dialogue delivery which introduces the climatic twist of the movie was too monotonous and bland. Someone like Santosh keezhattoor would have done a better job. The minor characters played by Alensier, Rajesh Sharma(1st victim of the demon) , VIjayaraghavan and Bharath Dhabholkar(As creator of the demon) played their parts well.
Prithviraj is on his quest to create crossover cinemas in malayalam targeting the large NRI communuty in America and other western countries. His recent outings like adam joan and the upcoming Ranam fall in this category. Hope he does a better job with Ranam and My Story.
Ezra tries to be different . It tries to replicate the scenes from the western horror movies its clearly 'inspired' from . Some scenes are hilarious like the ghostly girl who jump scares priya . The actual Ghost/Demon in the movie; Ezra is male . This sticks out like a sore thumb..The scenes in the attic are similar to that in insidious and conjuring.
Today's younger audience have already seen all these jump scares before .There are a horde of movies now coming in this genre like Conjuring ,Annabelle, , Insidious etc ....
The story initially felt eerily similar to that of manichithrathazhu ,where nakulan returns to his hometown with wife ganga due to a company posting . They both live in huge dilapidated bungalows. Both priya and ganga are lonely and their husbands are too busy with their professional work to even care about their wife's needs and feelings . But in the 1993 classic the reason of haunting was ganga's psychosis whereas in ezra , it is really supernatural.
Prithviraj' plays a nuclear waste management expert( well thats new !) and lives with his wife Priya who is from a malayali family settled in mumbai. A promotion requires him to relocate to kerala cochin which unsettles his wife as she has to leave all her near and dear ones to live in an unfamiliar place . In order to keep herself busy she goes shopping for antiques to decorate their new house (which looks quite dirty and in ruins. How does an modern couple choose such a house beats me. In one scene where priya washes her face in the bathroom , you can clearly see a tonne of dust on the pipe.. this inspite of having a stay at home servant and no kids !
In one of her shopping jaunts she comes across and purchases an antique jewish box which unknown to her houses a demon-Dybbuk. She brings it home and opens it out of womanly curiosity and then like the pandora's story all hell breaks loose.... In manichithrathazhu it was the opening of the thekkini which unleashed the persona of nagavalli.
To introduce a jewish demon called Dybbuk may sound inventive considering the presence of a jewish community in kochi, but its nothing new .A 2012 movie 'possession ' had did it before . Also this shows the minuscule Jewish community in bad light as black magicians.
Talking of performances, its best described as average. Prithviraj tries hard to get in tune with the character but is only partly successful . Tovino turned in his a wooden appearance. . Maybe he wasn't given much material to work on. The heroine was good looking but nothing more .
The major failure was the exorcist/rabbi played by sujith sankar. Inspite of getting a meaty role he could not do justice to it .His dialogue delivery which introduces the climatic twist of the movie was too monotonous and bland. Someone like Santosh keezhattoor would have done a better job. The minor characters played by Alensier, Rajesh Sharma(1st victim of the demon) , VIjayaraghavan and Bharath Dhabholkar(As creator of the demon) played their parts well.
Prithviraj is on his quest to create crossover cinemas in malayalam targeting the large NRI communuty in America and other western countries. His recent outings like adam joan and the upcoming Ranam fall in this category. Hope he does a better job with Ranam and My Story.