Asvins Review – Intriguing Prelude Sets It Up To Bungle
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The 2023 horror movie “Asvins” sets off in the tradition of folklore horror films like Tumbbad and Kumari, weaving a mythical tale about Gods, humans, demons, and conflicts. However, it quickly transitions into a “Paranormal Activity” style narrative when a group of friends, who are recording an infamously haunted mansion, start to encounter a malevolent presence.
Directed by Tarun Teja Mallareddy, who shares writing credits with Yogesh Sudhakara Mallineni, the film has an excellent setting for a horror-thriller. Vasanth Ravi portrays protagonist Arjun, who, along with four friends (including his wife), is hired by a firm to make a video of a remote mansion where an archaeologist murdered 15 people before taking her own life.
The grand haunted mansion sits on an isle that becomes surrounded by water during high-tide, often trapping inhabitants and visitors on its premises. The creators capture breathtaking scenes of the location, including a slow but ominous submerging of a cross as the water level rises, symbolizing how evil surfaces when God drowns. However, despite the intriguing start and lavish haunted set-up, the camera’s point-of-view in the first half becomes somewhat annoying. While the introduction promised a folklore-themed tale, the first half leans more towards a modern story of YouTubers and ghost-hunters. The initial pace takes too long to deliver the first significant twist, leading to waning viewer interest due to flat dialogues and a digression from the mythical beginning. Some elements were reminiscent of the Taiwanese horror film “Incantation,” but the eerie factor was very weak.
Vasanth Ravi’s performance as Arjun is engaging, but the dialogues and character’s story lack coherence. The movie features a few good jump scares and a pretty creepy soundtrack, but the writing leaves numerous questions unanswered, and the overall pace feels boringly slow. Some scenes are needlessly repeated, and certain aspects are over-explained, which might be frustrating for some viewers. By the end of the story, “Asvins” disappointingly fails to live up to the excitement and expectations it initially sets up in its own prelude.
It’s a 4.5 on 10 from me. You can stream the film on Netflix.
