In Unakkenna Venum Sollu, debut director Ramalingam blends the emotional quotient with paranormal horror. A supernatural-flick centred round the restless spirit of an eight-year-old girl, this one is more about looking for answers, rather than vendetta against those who had wronged her. While the director has crafted the emotional portions fairly engagingly, the spooky scenario could have been worked out better.
It opens in Chennai were Shweta, a panic stricken woman seemingly hounded by a supernatural force, slits her throat. It’s a gory beginning with the scene set for more of such horrific moments to come. But then it takes a long time for the spooky effect to re-appear, the early part taken up in establishing the characters. The scene shifts to Singapore where a couple, Shiva and Pooja (Morgan-Jaqlene), on the advice of their doctor, set out to Chennai for the treatment of their ailing son. They stay at a guest house owned by Pooja. On a parallel track is Karthik (Deepak), a cheerful guy working at a call centre. Karthik gets calls from an anonymous woman and finally gets to meet her at a cafe. How their destinies were meant to intertwine, would be explained later.
While the actors are just about adequate in their roles, Deepak leaves an impact. The horror begins when Pooja finds her mansion haunted, with mysterious sounds and cries of a child. It's a scenario we are familiar with by now. Rocking chairs, flickering lights, banging doors, distorted images reflected in mirrors, eerie sounds and shadowy figures swiftly moving across rooms.
Mathew, a ghostbuster (Gopi), is brought in to check the place. Such a presence would usually lead to greater activity of spirits and increased horror. But Mathew seems to be an innocuous presence, and doesn't really give one the confidence that he can rid the place of eerie forces. It is the weakest presence in the plot.
Post-interval, it is flashback-mode and the falling of the pieces of the puzzle into place. The scenes leading to the climax are well executed, where Karthik under hypnotherapy crosses to another dimension, to the astral plane to meet Daisy whose spirit had been haunting them (shades of 'Insidious' here). Callousness of humans, and promises made and not kept, are touched on here.
As the work of a debutant maker, the film is appreciable. But a coherent screenplay and a focused narration could have turned it into a more riveting experience.