morrison-dylan-fan
Discovering in the middle of 2011 that Ghost Horror films could really get under my skin,thanks to the flawed,but nerve-wrecking Insidious leaving me completely spooked for weeks!.During a recent search online to find any details about,possibly over-looked Bollywood Horror movies,I was thrilled to find a film which seemed to contain almost everything that I was looking for,and led to me getting set to discover the mystery of 13B.The plot:With his family experiencing a good deal of recent successes with their current high profile jobs, Manohar decides to buy an extremely expensive flat(number 13:B),where he and his family can at last feel,that they have truly "made it".Shortly after the family has started to settle in their new surrounding, (and also after Manohar has brought a brand new TV for his mother,so that she can stay transfixed to her many day time soaps.)Manohar discovers a "fault" in the building,when the lift seems weirdly unable to work for him at all.(Unknown to Manohar,the lift works perfectly fine for all of the other residents of the building.)Being left to put the finishing touches to the "prayer room",the family experience an unexpected setback,due to the walls suddenly feeling as if they have been made of solid stone,with the nails not going even a centre-meter into the wall!.Feeling stressed out over the current problems with the flat, Manohar's mother tells the rest of the family to relax for a moment,and join in watching her favourite soap of the day.To everyone's surprise,when the clock hits 13:00,the TV seems to suddenly get a mind of its own and refuse to change to the channel that the family are desperate to watch.Giving up on seeing even the briefest glimpse of their favourite TV show,the family soon become completely gripped on watching a "new" soap about a family that move into an extremely expensive flat,which eerily seems to be mirroring their own lives…View on the film:For the contrasting settings of reality and the TV soap that Manohar begins to suspect holds the balance to the very survival of his family,director Vikram K. Kumar, (who also co-wrote the goosebumps inducting screenplay with Abhinav Kashyap)films each of them in a strongly unique style,with the "soap" being given a realistic sheen,which helps to make it look as if it is shot and edited in a matter of hours.Going in the complete opposite direction,Kumar and cinematography P.C Sreeram give the world of Manohar (played by a brilliantly uneasy R.Madhavan) and his family a cold industrial appearance,with the scenes of Manohar in the flat/lift on his own having a fantastic strong feeling that something could suddenly appear to fill the empty space of the rooms around him at any moment.Along with the industrial vibes,Kumar also makes the flat feel terrifyingly isolated,with even the moments when a family member dares to leave the flat having a haunting atmosphere of the flat always towering above them.As the second of only two songs featured in the film started to play over the end credits, (complete with a music video of bikini clad girls!)I began to realise how Kumar and Kashyap had impressively kept one or two plot holes, (If any ghosts are reading this review and wondering how they can get my attention,I would strongly advise them not to make me feel like I am having a complete mental breakdown!)hidden from their spooky house of (flats) cards,by smartly giving the movie an oddly almost episodic style,with the gradually terrifying feel bubbling away and slowly intensifying as Manohar's family begin to learn the grisly secrets of 13B,which in the end causes their lives to be permanently scared.Final view on the film:A stunning,cleverly done,nerve-wrecking spooky Horror film.
kenny-boy5
Can't for the life of me figure out why the language is 90% Indian and then you hear English words in it like 'Thank You' or 'Complicated' or once in a while its a little sentence in English. If you're gonna do it in one language then do it. Does have a kind of cheesy plot. Subtitles would have been great. Just throwing this out there for the Canucks that want to download this and watch because it has a good rating. I guess I need to have 10 lines of text so I'm going to write a lot about nothing in order for this post to post. Giggity giggity goo. Oh I need 2 more lines so please ignore these last 5 lines as I get ready to post this stuff.KB
Shashank bhargava
There are a very few thrillers in Bollywood which have a good concept and also manage to utilize it well. 13B is one of them. One of the best Horror films I've seen in a long time in Bollywood, which not only had a good plot but was also very well written. It was something different than the usual Horror movies where there is a good attempt as far as background sound, cinematography & art direction are concerned but unfortunately they don't have a story to support all that. 13B sure is an exception. The acting was all brilliant, very convincing, and didn't have the cheezy touch to it. The story grips you till the end, it keeps getting tense and intriguing. One of the things lacking in the films was it's publicity which was very poor, the promotion song used was the very thing that was keeping me to watch the films, thankfully I got over it.
