Plus, our critic reviews Kakuda
36 Days: Only Murder In This Building |
SonyLIV's new show feels like a throwback to Karmma Calling, another bloated adaptation of a European TV series, writes Manik Sharma |
MID-WAY through SonyLIV’s 36 Days, a transwoman decides to blackmail the bully who is married to her friend. “I just want her to be happy, and I won’t let you come in the way,” she tells him, while residing under his roof. It’s a skirmish that verges on the preposterous: Would adults, however morbid or unhinged, really behave this way? This is a question that routinely pops up during the eight-episode run of this adaptation of a popular Welsh thriller. 36 Days plays out with its ear to the wall. i.e. it is intimate, neighbourly and evokes the days of soap opera-era TV. In effect, this attribute is both the show’s strength and its weakness, for it has sufficient layers to unpeel but does so with the grace of a crowbar compared to a book being unfurled. It is watchable but offers nothing to commit to memory. Stream the latest movies and shows with OTTplay Premium's Jhakaas monthly pack, for only Rs 249. A woman is found murdered in a condominium in Goa’s elite ‘Casa De Magnolia’, 36 days after she moved in. The show traces the five weeks that prefaced her death, unravelling as a fairly knotty yarn of lies, deceit and mind games. Central to the story is the strangely overlapping nature of the lives of the denizens of this uncannily intimate neighbourhood. Such a web of interconnected lives is bound to be tied together by tender hidden secrets, guilt, and in some cases malice. It sounds soapy, lathered with the kind of parlour tricks that episodic shows are used to pulling off, and while 36 Days does enough to veer away from that template it doesn’t quite travel far enough. |
|
|
Kakuda: Sonakshi Deserves Better Than This Strictly Average Horror Comedy |
DIRECTOR Aditya Sarpotkar, who is basking in the box office success of his last horror film Munjya, has an interesting filmography filled with conceptual gems. One of his earlier films is Zombivali, a deft Marathi horror movie in which a mysterious virus causes a zombie outbreak in the suburbs of Mumbai. In his latest movie, Kakuda, which sees a direct to OTT release on ZEE5, Sarpotkar blends horror and comedy to present a story that has some promise on paper but ends up falling flat in execution. Despite an interesting premise, the similarities (in intention and narrative) with Amar Kaushik’s Stree are hard to shake off. Kakuda begins with an urban-legend-turned-into-horror-filled-reality that plagues the town of Rathodi in rural Uttar Pradesh. At 7.15 pm every day, each home has to shut all their doors and keep a smaller door open for a supernatural spirit that visits. In failing to do so, the spirit, called Kakuda, injures the man of the house, causing him a hunchback and eventually, death, 13 days later. The entity itself is not very scary if you’ve seen horror films before, and the snarling sounds attached to him aren’t exactly inventive either. The horror element in Kakuda is not very impactful, however the comedy elements far supersede them. |
|
|
This weekly newsletter compiles a list of the latest (and most important) reviews from OTTplay so you can figure what to watch or ditch over the weekend ahead. |
| Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think it worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. | | In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an
hour on this. | |
|
Hindustan Media Ventures Limited,
Hindustan Times House, 18-20,
Second Floor, Kasturba Gandhi
Marg, New Delhi - 110 001, India |
|
|
If you need any guidance or support along the way, please send an email to ottplay@htmedialabs.com. We’re here to help! |
©️2021 OTTplay, HT Media Labs. All rights reserved. |
|
|
|
