Aval Movie Review: An unconventional approach to horror

If you want some persistent horror even after the movie has ended, you should give this a try.

Why Aval?

The movie depicts a possessed child who talks about his horrors and experiences in a different language, holy cross mysteriously turned upside down and an exorcism footage like “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”.

The chilling and rather “spooky” effect is lingering.

The movie can be reviewed as a good Tamil horror movie, way better than the previous ones that had come up in the genre of horror.

The Plot

The unconventional thing about this movie is that it delivers the message that not all spirits are bad.

It is all happy going initially with a Chinese mother narrating her story and a child singing a happy song.

The present narrative is set in Himachal Pradesh where a family of two, Krish, a brain surgeon and his wife, Lakshmi stay in a beautiful house.

Suspense begins when a family moves in next door.

The dramatic sound created in the entire movie when initially a tennis ball smashes at the glass window gives us an assuring feeling that the movie would successfully depict horror.

Then we are introduced to Jennifer, the daughter of the family that moved in who seems to have been possessed by a spirit.

She is seen to gaze blankly, frequently go back to her stepmother and show other abnormal traits at public gatherings. The couple face a lot of paranormal things after that.

Hoodwinking her thoughts of being possessed they performed a fake exorcism into making her believe that she had been freed of possession but surprisingly the priest looks nervous to conduct this and although the family believes the curse has been lifted it was in fact not.

In the next scene the movie goes back to the Chinese family where the father obsessing over a male child he never had, kills his daughter on solar eclipse at some sacrifice that he conducted so that his wife delivers a male child and the mother, in pure anguish, kills herself.

The climax of the movie has been well knitted in the end.

Cast and Effects

Coming to the cast and direction – The cast has very properly acted and portrayed the characters in the movie to develop the suspense and thrill that a horror movie deserves.

Music, sound effects and other bits of effects have been well played with in the movie.

Aval – Verdict

Aval is definitely clichéd with its usual horror scares. But it is a sincere attempt to deal with the seriousness of horror movies which is indeed a difficult genre to portray.

Usually ghosts and spirits that have not been well portrayed are rebuked.

The list is long and rather never ending. Compared to that it is definitely a well-knit and organized story.

The sense of horror has been put back into the Kollywood industry after Avaland it does deserve a good applause.