'Agyaat' has exactly two scary scenes, the rest is comedy

Film: Agyaat
Cast: Nitin Reddy, Priyanka Kothari
Director: Ram Gopal Varma

There’s a very thin line between a truly scary horror film, and one that looks like a comedy. Even a classic like The Evil Dead is no exception. It may have chilled your spine when you saw it as a kid, but you break into guffaws every time you see scenes from the film now.

Agyaat is so far past this line – that a horror filmmaker dreads – that it’s not even funny. This could very well have been called Ram Gopal Varma Ki ‘Aag’yat.

A bunch of moronic junior artistes-like actors, who play a film crew, are on a trip to a jungle to shoot their film. Among the crowd is a megalomaniac hero and his sidekick (the only characters that are a wee bit enjoyable), an eccentric-looking, overacting director (Aamir Khan duplicate), the over-the-top south Indian producer (a RGV fixture now), an assistant director (south import Nitin Reddy, plastic) and heroine (Priyanka Kothari, formerly Nisha Kothari, still unimpressive).

There are also some other crew members and a tour guide, Setu, who is the first one among them to die in mysterious circumstances. He has been killed in a peculiar manner, which is never shown to the audience.

But you are supposed to conjure up images based on the reactions you see on the faces of this bunch of non-actors. They all look back at the camera, wide-eyed, and you are supposed to be equally petrified. You just wonder if they all need a doctor.

Till the very end, you don’t know the source of the killings. It’s agyaat – unknown. All you know by the end of the film is that it’s scared of water and has never been seen by anyone before because no one escapes alive to tell the story.

“Yeh sabse khatarnak jaanwar lagta hai – aadmi” says a character at one point. Most of the dialogues are as inane. A ‘script co-ordinator’ looks up at the setting sun and says “raat hone wali hai” and everyone around looks scared.

Among the actors, Ishteyak Khan – who looks like he may have stepped into the role after Rajpal Yadav rejected it – does well to provide some funny moments as a spot boy.

Agyaat may not be a complete waste of a trip to a movie hall though. It’s been a while since you’ve seen a good comedy film and this one could fill in that gap. Those looking for some chills will get to watch exactly two scenes that are scary. The first is where the frustrated stunt director is pulled down by the ‘creature’.

The second scary scene in the film, and the one you wish you never saw actually, is the last one. As the camera zooms into the jungle, the following words appear:
Coming Soon… Agyaat 2.

Now that, I promise, will scare the hell out of you!