Review: Antha Naal

While the director seems to have made considerable effort to present historical evidence to establish the fact that human sacrifices to dark powers to gain favours from them have happened all over the world, his story is narrated in a fashion that is quite insipid.

Film: Antha Naal
Director:Vivy Kathiresan
Cast: Aryan Shyam, Aadhya Prasad, Lima S Babu, Rajkumar, Kishore Rajkumar, Imman Annachi
Music – N.S.Robert Sargunam
Dop – Satish Kathirvel
Editor – JF Castro
Rating: 2.5 stars

Director Vivy Kathiresan’s Anthal Naal is a horror thriller that revolves around the practice of offering human sacrifice by those practising black magic.

The film has a plot that is not entirely convincing and therefore fails in its mission to scare you.

The story in brief…
Antha Naal begins with Shri (Aryan Shyam), a well known director looking to begin work on his next film, which happens to be a horror thriller. Shri looks to kick off work on the film with a discussion with his team which includes his assistants Sam (Aadhya Prasad), Lima (Meghna), Gautam (Kishore Kumar) and Mark (Rajkumar). When Shri approaches the producer for an office to hold the discussion, the producer suggests that they use his guest house on the outskirts of the city as their office. Initially, the team is reluctant to move out of the city but then later relent. However, once they enter the guest house, strange and eerie developments begin to happen…

Director Vivy Kathiresan’s Anthal Naal gives you the impression that it might have originally been envisaged as a crime thriller and that the supernatural element might have been brought in later as an after thought.

However, the writers — in this case director Vivy Kathiresan and Aryan Shyam — seem to have gone the extra mile to make the horror element stick as an integral part of the film.

They come up with a story of how human sacrifices were offered to powerful demigoddesses called Maya yaginis in the past and how kings who feared their power banned these entities and their worship. Although banned, we are told that occult practitioners continued to pass on information about these Maya Yaginis to their students in secret. We are then introduced to a particular Namboodhiri who teaches his three adopted sons all the sacrifices that they need to make to appease the demi goddesses and find favour. How that story is connected to the strange happenings in the guest house is what Antha Naal is all about.

While the director seems to have made considerable effort to present historical evidence to establish the fact that human sacrifices to dark powers to gain favours from them have happened all over the world, his story is narrated in a fashion that is quite insipid. The amateurish performances of certain actors don’t help the cause of the director and what you are left with is a film that barely interests you.

However, the film does have its share of pluses. Cinematographer Satish Kathirvel’s shots look promising and the background score of music director N S Robert Sargunam is apt. A big thumbs up to both their work in this film.

Actor Imman Annachi, who plays a cook in this film, does his bit and offers a few laughs in an otherwise gory, horror drama that fails to impress you.