Aval (The House Next Door) - Cut Short Review

Cast: Siddharth, Andrea Jeremiah, Atul Kulkarni, Suresh, Anisha Angelina Victor
Direction: Milind Rau
Production: Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Etaki Entertainment 
Music: Girishh
Runtime: 2 hrs 17 mins
Censor Certificate: A

Plot - When a new neighbour Paul with his family comes next to the house of Dr.Krish and his wife Lakshmi, some strange things are happening for the Paul's daughter. This disturbs both the doctor and his neighbour family. What's the reason behind it and why the ghost disturbs both the families forms the remaining part of the story.

           Siddharth, who entered into Kollywood with Shankar's Film 'Boys' is now concentrating more on new experimentation scripts. After Jigarthanda, he attained a good level and started gaining some audience with his good content except 'Aranmanai 2'. From 'Jil Jung Juk', he started producing his own films. Then he signed his multi-language horror thriller 'The House Next Door'', which was named in Tamil as 'Aval'. The star cast and technical things in both the teaser and trailer, created a good impact among the audience. Now, this real horror thriller finally released in between these Chennai Rains. 

           Siddharth delivered a very good performance in both horror and romance sequences. Andrea Jeremiah played as the wife of Dr,Krish and gave her best in her portions. But what I felt is, the director utilized the character of Andrea more in romance than the horror sequences. She is a very good performer, but she were able to perform only towards the climax. Atul Kulkarni played as the neighbour Paul and as usual gave his best performance. Suresh Sir played a supporting character and gave his justice to his portions in the film. Anisha Angelina Victor, who played as Paul's daugheter delivered a good performance in which she gave justice to those horror sequences. The other characters of the film stood strong throughout the film with their neat performances. The cinematography work was really good in which we can feel the real temperature of that region. He made us so comfort with those visuals. The background score was really superb which gave a good support to those horror sequences. The director handled the screenplay with his horror genre in a very good manner. He kept us engaging throughout the film and also made us to scare in few portions. He didn't take too much time to get into the plot. But the screenplay is slow only in which the horror genre needs it. The romance sequence between the husband and wife was filled with over love, but Siddharth gave the justification for those scenes in some recent interviews. In the first half, the screenplay was very good without any bored feel. The interval block was really terrifying. After a long time in Kollywood, the director really gave a good horror feel to us with the less scarier moments. It broke the concept of the cliched horror scripts. In second half, the screenplay was good only in which lagging takes place. This doesn't affect the entire second half. Towards the ending of the film, the director made us to sit in the edge of the seat and made us to feel the horror content. The horror storyline deals with the Chinese background. The detailing work was really good. The engaging factor was really high. But still the replica of some Hollywood Horror films and the Malayalam movie 'Ezra' comes to our mind. Some logic errors can also be spotted. But the dealing of this horror storyline by keeping Kollywood audience in minds, made us to forgot those flaws and gave us a fulfilled feel in our hearts. 

Verdict - A Very Good Horror Thriller, which made us to scare rather than laughing in many scenes. There are some flaws in this film, but not as a great blunder of the film. We can keep those mistakes aside and enjoy this real Tamil Horror Thriller. It will definitely fulfill you. 

Cut Short Rating - 8.3/10