Not Dies Irae, Bhoothakaalam remains director Rahul Sadasivan’s best film; it proves supernatural is less scary than loneliness

Featuring Revathy and Shane Nigam at their best, Bhoothakaalam (Past) highlights that the supposed supernatural may be far less harmful than people’s psychological scars, and that repressing these can only lead to a ferocious eruption one day. Besides its superior technical aspects, Bhoothakaalam stands out for the magnificent way it analyses the psyches of its central characters at a microscopic level, laying them bare before the audience without subjecting them to any litmus test to define their ‘true natures.’ Even as Rahul Sadasivan’s latest Pranav Mohanlal-starrer, the horror thriller Dies Irae, continues its well-deserved successful run, it cannot be overstated that Bhoothakaalam remains his best movie to date. And the reasons are aplenty.

Much like Ram Gopal Varma’s Bhoot (2003), which entirely uprooted the horror genre from the usual rural backdrops and abandoned mansions and replanted it in a bustling urban environment, thus giving the genre a fresh twist, the Rahul directorial is anchored in a similar setting. Asha (Revathi), a middle-aged single woman, lives in a rented standalone house in Kochi with her young son Vinu (Shane Nigam) and her elderly mother (Valsala Menon). While Asha works as a kindergarten teacher, Vinu is on the hunt for a job after completing DPharm.

Similar to Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018), Bhoothakaalam introduces a character early on who appears eerily suspicious, suggesting their possible connection to the supernatural. In place of the teen Charlie Graham (Milly Shapiro), here is Asha’s mother. Tapping into a popular trope in the horror genre, Rahul brilliantly executed a misdirection here, allowing the Holmesian audience to start forming their own theories about the elderly woman, thus giving the director ample time to slowly build a chilling atmosphere for the rest of the story to unfold.

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The sheer expertise Rahul amassed as a filmmaker since his debut venture, Red Rain (2013), was evident from the start in Bhoothakaalam, particularly in the way the frames were composed. Instead of packing the visuals with too many unnecessary props, he left much of the frame empty, evoking different connotations at different times.

In the case of the house, the obvious explanation was that since they moved in not long ago and considering their financial struggles, there weren’t too many items there. Nevertheless, on many occasions, the camera was placed unusually far away from the characters in the movie, particularly Asha and Vinu, thus making them appear smaller and allowing the void around them to look gigantic, subtly implying the burgeoning loneliness.

In a 2023 interview with GQ, world cinema legend Martin Scorsese broke down the iconic hallway scene from Taxi Driver (1976) and noted, “I felt that when he (Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro) made that phone call, it was so painful, but you shouldn’t witness it. So, the camera should track away, but not pan away. It should move completely to a hallway. And in the hallway, you think somebody’s coming. But nobody’s gonna come; nothing’s gonna happen; we’re all alone.”

The sheer expertise Rahul Sadasivan amassed as a filmmaker since his debut venture, Red Rain (2013), was evident from the start in Bhoothakaalam. (Credit: Facebook/@plantfilms)

A closer look at Bhoothakaalam shows that Rahul and DOP Shehnad Jalal also attempted something similar. In many moments, particularly within the house, we see the character in focus placed near one of the edges of the frame, leaving the remaining space open. We may assume that someone might enter and occupy that space, but no one does. In certain other instances, the makers used over-the-shoulder shots to convey the emotional distance between Vinu and Asha by placing one in the foreground and the other in the background, appearing almost uninterested in each other.

Even after they are taken over by grief and guilt following the passing of Asha’s mother, they don’t turn to each other for solace. If anything, it only pushes the mother and son further into loneliness. While Asha is diagnosed with clinical depression, Vinu also clearly has mental health issues, but he is hesitant to admit it or seek help. Regardless, they both assume that the other person is the root of all their existing problems. From sadism to gaslighting, Bhoothakaalam depicts the mother-son duo inflicting pain on each other in various ways, which is brilliantly illustrated during the dinner-table conversation scene

It’s not just in Asha and Vinu’s relationship with each other that Rahul and co-writer Sreekumar Shreyas introduced nuances. Just as there are many layers in the movie horizontally, there are also vertical layers in each character. Although Vinu harbours a deep-seated resentment against his mother for chaining him to their realities without letting him fly away when he had the chance, he also has his flaws. From substance abuse to irresponsibility, the film shows the many shades of Vinu sharply. On the other hand, despite knowing that her son had no future in their surroundings, Asha denied him the opportunity to migrate because she thought she would end up alone, and she couldn’t handle that. This highlights her selfishness. Considering their poor rapport, Asha and Vinu are essentially alone even in each other’s presence.

Once all this was established, Rahul reintroduced the horror element more intensely, almost as if the supernatural forces around them thrived on loneliness. Until Asha’s mother was alive, they at least had a common topic between them. However, with her passing, they become completely isolated. Plagued by substance abuse, guilt, and regret, the increasingly vulnerable Vinu becomes the first to start seeing the unusual occurrences in their house. With unaddressed mental health issues, he emerges as an easy target for the forces around him. Fear drives him into sleeplessness, making him more vulnerable, and at one point, he literally pees his pants. In a way, it can be said that Bhoothakaalam delves deeply into people’s fear of being alone and the scars left by the physical and/or emotional departure of a loved one, much like Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House.

Unlike Bramayugam and Dies Irae, Bhoothakaalam frames everything as part of a larger psychological game. (Credit: Facebook/@plantfilms)

Although it is later revealed that the house Asha and Vinu live in once witnessed a man dying by suicide after poisoning his wife and daughter, leading one to believe that their ghosts are haunting the place, a casual line mentioned by a character at one juncture hints that this needn’t be the case. The father of the man who died by suicide says, “After they got married, they built the house and moved in there. She (the wife) was the first one to say that the house had a problem. Later, she started saying that my son was mentally ill. Saying it repeatedly, she eventually made him completely crazy and made him do unspeakable things.”

Here, though the father’s attempt is to whitewash his son and deflect blame, he reveals that his daughter-in-law had previously warned them about the mysterious nature of the house. Later, we also hear the story of a man named Anand, who lived in the same house with his wife, before Asha and Vinu moved in. He apparently always felt the presence of another person in the house. Anand eventually attempted suicide but failed, leaving him paralysed. Now, parallel these two with Asha and Vinu’s story. Initially, they experienced loneliness, which soon began to permeate every part of their psyche. Something started driving a wedge between them, pushing them further away from their safety net. Although the deceased wife was the first to notice the house’s mystery, at one point, she pointed fingers at her husband, un/intentionally saying he was mentally ill. The same happened in the mother-son duo’s life as well, with Vinu un/intentionally asking Asha in a critical tone if her problem stemmed from taking all the depression medications.

Bhoothakaalam delves deeply into people’s fear of being alone and the scars left by the physical and/or emotional departure of a loved one. (Credit: Instagram/@aesthetic_kunjamma)

Towards the end, mirroring the climax of Sibi Malayil’s Mammootty-starrer Thaniyavarthanam (1987), Asha even prepares dinner laced with poison to end their lives. However, the subversion comes when they have an open and heartfelt conversation. This brings them closer, thus thwarting the supernatural force’s plan for them to destroy themselves. It is only then that the “ghosts” make an appearance. Although we see silhouettes of three spirits — a man, a woman, and a young girl — it raises the question of why Anand never saw all of them and said there was only one other person in the house besides him and his wife. Could the force haunting the house actually be one that can shift its shape?

Though the movie also explores significant psychological themes, it doesn’t pretend to be an expert in the matter or offer solutions. In fact, it even shows that insensitive and judgmental psychologists and psychiatrists are also part of the larger problem. Yet, it doesn’t entirely vilify the experts, which could otherwise create a sense of repulsion in people, potentially discouraging them from seeking professional help in real life. For instance, although he is judgmental at first, we see counsellor George (Saiju Kurup) undergo a transformation after making some key discoveries.

Unlike Bramayugam and Dies Irae, which ventured into the alleys of Hinduism in search of solutions to the horror, Bhoothakaalam framed everything as part of a larger psychological game, where the boundaries sometimes blurred, making the terror strikingly real. Besides its spectacular sound design and extraordinary background score, what makes Bhoothakaalam one of the best horror films Malayalam cinema has ever seen is the remarkable performances by Revathy and Shane Nigam, along with the sheer chemistry between them.