418 Review: ★★½☆☆ (2.5/5)
418 starts with a disturbing opening and has a caring message about women and mental health. But a slow middle section, repeated scares, and a predictable story stop it from living up to the hype.
Rating: ★★½☆☆ (2.5/5)
Genre: Horror Thriller
Language: Kannada
Director: Kirtan Nadagouda
Cast: Surya Raj Veerabathini, Chaithra J Achar, Preethi Pagadala
Indian cinema often waters down horror by mixing it with comedy, so a film that tries to be truly scary is rare. 418 made headlines when the Central Board of Film Certification reportedly found it too scary. It was backed by Prashanth Neel, the filmmaker behind KGF and Salaar, and after several delays, it has finally reached theatres. The big question is whether it lives up to all that talk.
The story follows Vivek Shankar, played by Surya Raj Veerabathini, a middle class student whose parents have mortgaged their house to pay for his education. They take him to VIMS, a medical college in coastal Karnataka, where he moves into a newly renovated boys’ hostel.
The building was locked for 15 years because it used to be a mental asylum where terrible murders took place. Women are not allowed inside, and Room No. 418 is strictly off limits.
A few days after moving in, Vivek starts to see strange things that bring on anxiety and paranoia. A visit to the college counsellor, played by Ramesh Indira, does not help much, so Vivek and his roommate Rohith decide to dig into the mystery of the hostel on their own.
The film gets off to a strong start. In the opening scene, a bloodied woman with broken bones attacks her caretakers in a brutal and creepy display, which sets a dark tone right away. The story then moves to the college in 2020, just before the COVID lockdown, and gives the eyes a break from the horror.
This is also where the film slows down. The college scenes, with ragging, medical students helping a friend named Saisha, played by Preethi Pagadala, leaving the hospital, and other side stories, move at a snail’s pace and add little to the main mystery. Things pick up when Vivek’s strange experiences begin, although his friends brush them off as hallucinations.
At the interval, the film reveals the backstory through Devika, played by Chaithra J Achar, and explains why Room 418 was sealed and how its scary legend began. Like many horror tales, it centers on a woman who was wronged.
A conversation between the students and the counsellor, with its camerawork and a haunting lullaby that introduces Devika, shows what the film could have been with a tighter script. The film also tries to mix horror, local beliefs, and science, which gives it more to explore than ghost sightings alone.
Sadly, the runtime and repeated scenes hurt it. Many scenes with Devika keep returning to her wish to have a child, saying the same thing without moving the story forward. What could have been moving becomes tiring.
The film also depends heavily on sound design for its jump scares, instead of building situations that are scary in themselves. Some scares work, but the repetition is hard to miss after the interval. The twist about Room 418 is a good touch, but the final reveal about Devika and Saisha does not land as planned.
On the technical side, Dinesh Divakaran’s cinematography keeps the creepy mood going, and Venky GG’s music supports the horror well. Akul Avinash’s editing, however, closely copies the style of KGF and Salaar, and it becomes exhausting after a while.
Still, 418 is a commendable try. Under the supernatural story, it is about women who are harmed by society and the toll that anxiety and depression can take. That message is worth noting, even if the execution leaves room for improvement. It is a film with good ideas that does not quite deliver the chills it promises.
If you want more to watch this week, our review of Sumo Didi covers an uplifting sports biopic that wins without a villain, our review of Tum Mere Ho looks at an old-school romance where the music does the heavy lifting, and for a Netflix crime thriller, our review of Gajab Raat is worth a read.
418 is now playing in theatres.