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Join UsStar Cast: Sarita Choudhury, Sunita Mani, Bernard White, Omar Maskati
Director: Elan Dassani, Rajeev Dassani
What’s Good: A story on superstitions that’s not a daily soap.
What’s Bad: A disappointment for horror movie lovers.
Loo Break: Doesn’t have significant turning points; you can take 1-2 breaks.
Watch or Not?: If you liked the trailer, give it a chance. But keep no expectations.
User Rating:
The plot of the movie was revealed in the trailer itself. An Indian woman named Usha Kharti (Sarita Choudhury) from Delhi is worried for her daughter’s future, Pallavi (Sunita Mani). By future, we mean her marriage. While Usha and her husband Krishnan (Bernard White) stay in Delhi, their daughter resides in New Orleans. But they always give updates about each other’s life via phone/video calls. On the calls, superstitious Usha reminds her daughter to wear the ‘evil eye’ bracelet always to save her from harmful energies. Evil Eye means buri nazar in Hindi.
Pallavi is 29, and that’s a big concern for Usha. Her daughter’s cousin, who is younger than her, is all set to get ‘settled’. But destiny has its plans for Pallu as she meets Sandeep Patel (Omar Maskati). The two are happy in their world. But when Usha learns about him, her superstitions grow. Due to some reasons, she believes that the man her daughter is dating is the reincarnation of her abusive lover who died 30 years ago.
Evil Eye Movie Review: Script Analysis
The story had everything – good actors, perfect set-up, and superstitions to play with. We get to see Usha’s superstitious side to the fullest, but that’s it. Welcome To Blumhouse promised us this as a horror movie. Sadly, that is missing.
Usha is a well-written character as she is far too superstitious. As an Indian mother, she is also overprotective of her daughter. The writing felt like it didn’t pay attention and used Usha’s traits to make the story dark, just how Pallavi and Krishnan would dismiss her claims as delusions. Sadly, the story that had the potential to be a great horror drama becomes odd to watch.
But there are several good points too. When you watch Usha, as an Indian girl, you will see some bits of your mother in her. The way she’s concerned about her daughter’s wedding is a typical desi parent! Also, when she compares how Pallavi’s cousin has got married, and she’s still single, is something every Indian girl must’ve heard after crossing the ‘age of marriage’.
Evil Eye Movie Review: Star Performance
Sarita Choudhury is brilliant as Usha. She captured the essence of every Indian mother who is caring, overprotective and also paranoid. She grabs your attention when she comes on the screen, making you curious about what she’s going to say next.
Sunita Mani as Pallavi Kharti is another aptly written character. Sunita does a wonderful job in portraying a daughter who keeps listening to her mother’s concern and calls her out when things go wrong. As an Indian daughter who also has a mother who tends to get overprotective, my reactions would’ve been just like Pallavi.
Actors Omar Maskati and Benard White play their part well as Sandeep and Krishnan.
Evil Eye Movie Review: Direction, Music
Pallavi and Usha are in two different parts of the world. But the camera captures their chemistry to perfection. The happy, sad and angry emotions appear natural. By showing a few flashbacks at the beginning itself gave away a major spoiler of the movie.
As mentioned above, the movie lacked evil factor. The mood was set right, but failed to deliver what was promised. Considering it is produced by Priyanka Chopra’s Purple Pebble Pictures, one hopes to see the makers playing a lot with superstitions and giving us the jump scares.
Music doesn’t play any substantial part in the storytelling.
Evil Eye Movie Review: The Last Word
Overall, Evil Eye misses the evil part in it. The performances are good, and the story is interesting. But there are no scares, only superstitions in it!
Two stars!
Evil Eye Trailer
Evil Eye releases on 13 October ,2020.
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