After the action movie Contract, Ram Gopal Verma is all set to entertain the viewers with Phoonk upcoming movie. As the name might suggest, it is a horror film, which claims to hold the audience. Once again Ram Gopal Varma treads one of his favourite territories – horror. His movie Phoonk doesn’t spook you as much as it intrigues you with its black magic theme and its unexpected conclusion. The film is directed by Ram Gopal Verma and produced by Azam Khan. Amar Mohile has given the music of the film. The star cast of the film includes Sudeep, Amruta Khanvilkar, Ahsas 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 and Bharat Kaul.

Every frame of ‘Phoonk’ has an unambiguous Varma stamp over it. The dimly lit rooms, the eerie characters, the lingering shots of props like toys or statues or even crows or cats, the camera angles and the background music – all mesh together to give an uncanny look to the movie. However, after a while, it becomes a tad too repetitive.

The movie says the story of Rajeev ( Sudeep ), a builder and a staunch atheist with a family comprising of a loving wife ( Amrita Khanvilkar ), two kids Raksha ( Ahsaas Chana ) and Rohan (Shrey), and a religious mother.

A non-believer in God or Devil, Rajiv’s world and his belief system goes confused when an evil is let loose in his house and the most affected is his daughter Raksha who begins behaving in abnormal ways.

The doctors say Raksha suffers from “psycho dissassociative disorder” but offer no convincing cure. Not long before it’s clear that a black magic spell has been cast on Rajeev’s family by some malicious sick wishers. It’s a spell that only an exorcist can break.

Unlike any pulpy horror film, ‘Phoonk’ doesn’t scare you with its horrific details but by gradually building up your expectation regarding what would unfurl on the screen. Varma’s technical prowess does come handy to this effect but there are a couple of scenes where the filmmaker overindulges in this style.

However, Ramu does manage to take out good performances from the cast – particularly from Sudeep and Ahsaas Chana. Sudeep is convincing as a man whose mind is messed up because all his non-beliefs turn out wrong one by one. Ahsaas Chana is outstanding as a child possessed by an evil spirit. Amrita Khanvilkar gives a controlled performance while Zakir Hussain (as taantrik) is a bit over the top.

Above all, ‘Phoonk’ is a regular not horror but superstitious film that trembles and stirs you at times but doesn’t scare you.