Purpose lost by the end. Review on Jackson Durai

Jackson Durai is yet another addition to most sort “horror-comedy genre”. Under the direction of Dharanidharan, who directed Burma(who can forget). This horror story comes just gives out the picture how weird an idea can be but this director, who is just two movies old, knows what he needs from his screenplay, how it should look, feel and deliver the audience – a genius filmmaker – can make reverse zoom work even on a ghost. Simply brilliant!

Well, the story is about, like most horror scripts, a haunted house in Ayanpuram, tahnks to this all the villagers locked themselves up in their homes before 9 PM. Sathya(Sibiraj) is a crime branch inspector with zero success rate and is sent to Ayanpuram to investigate the paranormal activities. Coincidentally, before being assigned this project, Sathya was on leave to find his perfect life partner.

Hero enters the village and starts his investigation, during so he falls for the village president’s(Shanmugha Sundaram) daughter Viji(Bindhu Madhavi). But she has one more admirer that is president’s relative(Karunakaran), who wants to marry Viji. To arrive a conclusion and who can be the best suitor for his daughter, the president throws a challenge at the two young bloods to stay in the haunted bungalow for seven days and whoever succeeds will get Viji’s hand in marriage. Who wins at staying at horror BnB? No spoiler review.

After Burma, I definitely expected Dharanidharan’s writing to bring or rather sparkle the screen with the same magic and awe-struck feeling. Somehow, Jackson Durai is not upto the par. Needed more of his “weird”, the good weird that we have already seen. Like the tag line of the movie says “pei-ing guests”, just made my pun-loving heart giggle at that thought. The movie sounds more like horror-comedy with intricate plot. It wants to bring out more than just scares and screams. But too much time is taken to get to the point and when it does kick in, the spike is not even visible or felt. Just flattens the scale.

Talking about performances, only Yogi Babu is able to evoke laughter, which makes it the weakest link. Sibiraj looks convincing as a young cop and has, almost, got the comic timing, needs improvement on his body language and expressions to carry serious roles. Sathyaraj’s character makes me think why did he opt for this role, but this veteran delivers the role with full justice. But to think of Rajendran in horror-comedy as a British Stooge named Bradley, is kind of unbelievable, because he only attempts to amuse or spook, but nothing happens.

The main focus goe to the costume design and makeup, they definitely have rolled their socks up and done a fantastic scary make-up.  Still, the horror of British era set up is brought out more convincingly by the art director, this guy knew what he wanted and how to get it. An impressive art design is successful when you can really get the feel of being in that haunted bungalow with all the rusty frames and stone gargoyles. Puurr-fect!

All in all, if you would love to see how a British-boy(Zachary) discovers his love for mysorepak, then this movie can answer that curiosity. A decent horror-comedy and watchable for Sibiraj and Sahtyaraj, a father-son combo. A one-time watch.