Thaindian News

By V.S. Rajapur
Film: “www.bhaya.com”; Director: Vemagal Jagannatha Rao; Cast: Santhosh, Shankar Aswath and Sundar Raj; Music: Rajesh Ramanath; Rating:**1/2

Veteran Kannada director Vemagal Jagannatha Rao has been making horror films for long and some of them have gained critical acceptance. But his latest flick is different as “www.bhaya.com” deals with “computer horror”.

This is the scariest of all his films so far and he has used state-of-the-art technology to heighten the movie’s impact. Computer graphics and sound effects are the highlight of the film.

In “bhaya.com”, Rao has moved out of creating fear through creaking doors, screeching voices, owls and skeletons and tried to introduce a new element of fear — through the desktop computer.

But Rao could have made the first half of the film a little more pleasing to watch. Many sequences in the first half drag and as a result, viewers may get bored half way through through the movie.

The second is more interesting where the story moves at a faster pace and the director has used sharp editing techniques to add to the horror feel.

The story revolves around Prashanth and his five friends - Rajeev, Gokhale, Vini, Preethi, Prakruthi - all working for a technology firm. They head out to the jungles for taking some offbeat shots, but they get lost midway.

They are then led to a haunted place where Rajeev, one of Prashanth’s friends, takes courage to go inside a hideout. He suddenly turns hostile and the friends decide to get away from the area.

They later find that their desktop computers start behaving in a peculiar fashion. The computer even swallows a computer repair specialist.

The incident scares Prashanth and his friends who go to a tantrik (black magician) to find a solution to this mysterious problem. Meanwhile, the police begins investigating the mysterious dissappearance of the computer repair specialist.

Adding to the strange goings on is the shocking death of Prakruthi’s father. And it is all left to the tantrik to unravel and stop the mysterious happening.

Except for the film’s hero Santhosh and well-known television actor Vikram Soori, most of the artists in the film are fresh faces. And their inexperience does affect the film.

Veteran actors like Shankar Aswath, Sundar Raj and Bharat Bhagavathar just about pas muster in the scary story.

Rajesh Ramanath’s background score is a plus point of the film.

On the whole, “www.bhaya.com” is a watchable horror film.