“Imagination is sometimes scarier than the ghost,” reflects Ramesh Indira’s college counsellor, early on in Kirtan Nadagouda’s latest horror. He is speaking of a hostel, and more particularly a room, that’s been reluctantly opened up years after a manic spree murder. It’s interesting that the film, a routine locked-room horror, doesn’t merely touch upon this philosophy through stray dialogue but fully embraces it.
This is a particularly good narrative choice, considering how routine 418 (Nadagouda's debut, presented by filmmaker Prashanth Neel) might come off on paper. A group of med students move into a hostel, which once housed a woman who killed herself and a few others back when it was an asylum. The ghost is most obviously a woman. There is a backstory that lays it on thick. And there is a gang that does something that will most definitely get them into trouble or, better yet, killed. But where 418 tries to differentiate itself is through its storytelling, and more importantly, its form.
For one, the entire first half plays out like a fever dream that one of the protagonists, Vivek (Surya Raj Veerabathini), experiences. A sensitive but god-believing young man with money problems at home lives out his personal hell when the ghost next door comes to warm his room. Haunted by images of Yakshagana — the film unfolds in coastal Karnataka, and this detail isn’t just a narrative afterthought — he is forced to dig a little deep into his next-door spirit’s past after a bad cannabis trip. Akul Avinash’s frenetic but knowing hand on the edit keeps us on our toes, always guessing.
To add to the chaos, the entire present unfolds during early pandemic days, adding a layer of isolation and dread to a depressed student who is already seeing spirits. Nadagouda leaves just enough breadcrumbs for us to follow his lead, with the film’s unnerving non-linearity taking us seamlessly between the present and the past. The backstory, told in gorgeous soft and warm tones, speaks of the story of an orphan woman who yearns to be a wife. And then to be a mother. Chaithra J Achar is resplendent as Devika. She often speaks through her eyes, filling in for the things the film doesn't find time to convey. The pressure on women to become mothers.
Horror has spectacularly memorialised angsty mothers throughout history. 418 looks like it has lots to say about the impossible asks of being a mother, somewhere between a Rosemary's Baby (1968) and a Hereditary (2018), but it frustratingly ends up not letting the discourse seep into its horror — something that a lot of modern social horrors are doing well.
While the writing itself doesn’t do the flashback much justice, apart from the routine stories of the occult and trauma to women, the visual and aural treatment does a lot of the heavy lifting here. The clinking of anklets, once meant to soothe, takes on a sinister meaning as the mood in the house shifts. In the present, a dropped flashlight slowly reveals the leftovers of a bloody tragedy. These tiny moments seem inventive and retain interest, even when the film runs out of things to say. 418 hints at the heights Indian modern horror can reach, even as its ethos seems like it's stuck in the past.