‘Bhoothakalam’ movie review: Getting the scares right in effortless fashion

Revathy and Shane Nigam, both of whom have been missing from screens for a while, carry the film all through

Holding back the core, while leaving us enough strands to hold on to, is an art. But holding everything back in a script has its perils, especially when you don’t have enough to take the viewer by surprise later on. Bhoothakalam shows us how to get it right, in quite an understated, effortless fashion.

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If one starts watching the film without reading or hearing anything about it, the initial scenes gives one the sense of it being a drama on the strained relationship between Asha (Revathy) and her son Vinu (Shane Nigam), both of whom are struggling with mental health issues. Asha works at a school, which is the only source of income for the family, that also includes her bed-ridden mother. Vinu, a pharmacy graduate, is struggling to find a job. The tension and rift between him and his mother is further compounded by her reluctance to let him move out of the city in search of better opportunities.