'Shaitaan' movie review: Satanic curse of second half

Film ShaitaanDirector Vikas BahlCast Ajay Devgn R Madhavan Jyotika Janki BodiwalaUA Supernatural thrillerRating 25Therersquos a young girl at her home with her Facebook profile pictureperfect upperclass family in Shaitaan Satan A stranger for an equally strange man enters their isolated farmhouseHe takes over the girlrsquos brain turning her into an obedient robot for a sentient beingmdashtotally remotecontrolled by him He progressively makes her do bizarre things placing her family in clear and present dangerThe Hindi word for this black magic as per the film is ldquovashikaranrdquo I quickly typed it on my phone which inevitably under the vashikaran of autocorrect has punched the word as ldquovashpikaranrdquoThat means evaporation and something the family in this movie would wish to occur for the obscure nightmare playing out before themNow herersquos the thing Itrsquos not like the tall petite young girl in the picture has consequently been blessed with extra superhuman powersSurely she can be tied up tied down tired out or put to sleep Also can this burly bloke not be overpowered by this family of the husband wife and another childLike me if yoursquore asking these questions inside the theatremdashin your head of course please never yap with those yoursquore withmdashitrsquos a good sign That means as an audience yoursquore participating with the picGiven that every time therersquos a doubt there is a sufficiently believable explanation that follows a few minutes later Which is just as wellShaitaan stars Ajay Devgnmdasheasily the biggestticket draw in the filmrsquos lineup This is a supernatural thriller Clubbing all such flicks into a single genre the last time I recall Devgn killing it in this space was probably Ram Gopal Varmarsquos Bhoot 2003 Actor R Madhavan stars opposite Devgn hereGoing by the cast itrsquod be fair to term Shaitaan in business parlance as a lsquomedium budgetrsquo movie Something that many believe is no more the domain of big theatrical releasesUntil a film like Drishyam 2 2022 also starring Devgn storms into cinemas and forces everyone to redo their movie math Both films by and large bear the same producersShaitaan is centred more on that teenaged everygirl Janki Bodiwala under external mindcontrol That she exudes zero personality otherwise should make audiences feel all the more pathetic and sympathetic for her Shersquos suitably subtle even when screechyTamil staractor Jyotika right off the brilliant Malayalam film Kaathal 2023 plays the girlrsquos mom Devgn is the doting husband and dad He plays a chartered accountant CA by professionTo be fair even in real life let alone filmsmdashI can visualise Madhavan as a CA Hersquos been picked for the dangerous deranged demonic roguersquos part Itrsquos a fine choiceDoes Maddy going mad as shaitaansatan gritting his teeth growling under his breath give you goosebumps in return Over a moment or two yes Even if not quite in the same way as say Ashutosh Rana has been appearing in our nightmares since Sangharsh 1999Does this film have you under its controlspell like the teenaged girl in it Up until the clever interval point more or less yesAnd it wouldrsquove throughout if this was a tight 90minute thriller set in the claustrophobic space that neither the characters nor the audience can escape from Think of it as Varmarsquos bungalowbedlam Kaun 1999 with Urmila Matondkar Manoj BajpayeeShaitaan is admittedly the remake of Krishnadev Yagnikrsquos highlyrated Gujarati film Vash 2023 Those in the know tell me that itself was somewhat inspired by Vikas Desai and Aruna Rajersquos Hindi horror Gehrayee 1980 Irsquove seen neither to compareEspecially if either film similarly suffered from the satanic curse of the second half Wherein over the final 25 minutes or somdashfeellookplot wisemdashthis script fully flips into another filmThe beauty of Drishyam 2 for instancemdashthe success of which could explain the release of this horrorthrillermdashis the consistency with which it stays its course as a suspense drama without once descending into insecurities of securing a wider theatrical audiencebaseImagine Shaitaan as Kaun that visually switches into some kinda Kantara 2022 then No you donrsquot have to imagine it You can just watch it if you like