Amazon MX Player’s new eight-part series on the paranormal investigator Gaurav Tiwari has its moments of palpable fear. For those out there who believe in that sort of eerie stories from the other world, Bhay is your poison.
Director Robbie Grewal imbues a consistency to the storytelling. Even though the series is not made at a budget affordable to Poltergeist, or in a lighter vein, Ghostbusters, it does seem to communicate a genuine belief in the unbelievable.
Whenever ghosts appear on screen in those consciously created ‘real’ footage (it’s like inflicting scratches on the leg so that Mom won’t send the child to school the next day), you do feel a chill run up your spine, albeit mild.
Karan Tacker, a passable actor at the best of times, tries hard to live up to the spooky challenge. He is unable to generate the palpable fear that his character feels around him. The fact that he can see spirits, never gives us the shivers. It only makes us curious about what the fuss is all about.
The story is told in a non-linear form: now Gaurav is dead, now he is not. Instead of adding a sense of foreboding the narrative pattern seems distracting.
Kalki Koechlin playing Irene, a writer researching Gaurav Tiwari’s mysterious death, never looks interested enough to suck us into the eerie atmosphere. We have seen her play the Independent Working Woman (I am not sure she smokes, must check the CCTV footage on that) so often that for Kalki, playing one more is just a day’s work.
While the series creates some fear in the way the unknown impinges on the known, what the narration lacks is urgency. No one seems to be in a hurry to explain the mystery of the Gaurav Tiwari murder, or why a man would get so deeply involved in investigating ghosts when he knows he is heading for a deadend.
What drives a man like Gaurav beyond the brink? Karan Tacker is unable to give his character a mysterious layer. The supporting cast is in it for the thrill, which regrettably is at a low ebb. However the going never gets dull. The presentation conveys a certain crackle and a hiss.
