This was 2017, and Netflix was still in earlier stages (so far as we were aware) of getting scary materials from around the world or at least recommending such materials to us. This has been corrected in the days since then, though we have not really caught up with all the available materials ourselves. Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai might not have given us the filmgoing experience we were looking for, and it may have unintentionally and subconsciously warned us away from other films in a similar vein.
Ah, Bollywood! The filmland of lengthy, kitchen sink productions. I say that with honest affection. They have such brightness, cheeriness, and wild energy that it is difficult not to love the films for their flamboyance and joy. I never expected to see a horror movie done in this vein, but I really should not have been surprised that one would be attempted.
There are some touches of The Amityville Horror (1979) in Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai as well as other examples from the scary house genre of scare films it inspired. The camera work shows some promise. There is a lengthy sustained shot of Ayesha walking through her nighttime house and getting the crap scared out of her, which forces her to run back to her room which is well executed. However, the scares do not occur often enough and are often framed in uninteresting ways when they do show up.
Many haunted house films explore the idea of a house taking on the character of a person, or attribute character-ness to the house itself. If the house in Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai was a person, at its scariest it is an aunt suffering dementia and occasional bad dreams amid the desire to keep everything tidy. These films usually work by controlling and heightening a sense of dread, using humor to lighten audience tension before re-applying the thumbscrews. Here . . . not so much.
In essence, we have a haunted house picture where the house and the hauntings are not explored. Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai does a fair job of invoking one trope and then moving on to another. There are elements of a family coming undone due to anxiety that was reminiscent of films like The Shining (1980), but little or nothing is ultimately made of this. There is an attempt to make the atmosphere unreliable, a complete power outage accompanied by two characters mentioning that such incidents happen all the time; again, nothing is made of this opportunity and the sudden black out is never repeated. There are actually a lot of elements of horror that could have been explored, which are only touched upon.
The film opens with Ugr Pratap, the spirit master, hot on the trail of an evil spirit possessing the body of a young village girl. He tracks down the spirit but is not able to subdue it and the girl (under the spirit) plunges to her death and curses Ugr Pratap with the annihilation of his family. This horrible curse results in the brutal death of Ugr Pratap's innocent family and Ugr Pratap is accused of murdering them. The well meaning psychiatrist Dr Bharadwaj gets the court to send Ugr Pratap to a quiet psychiatric facility rather than the gallows. Dr Bharadwaj explains that he, too, often encounters paranormal patients who need spiritual rather than psychiatric help and Ugr Pratap is the only person who can help them.
Ayesha returns home and now launches her reign of terror on the other servants. Her father and Ugr Pratap arrive just as Ayesha attacks Uday himself. Ugr Pratap fights back with his spiritual kamandal. There is a long battle as the spirit flees to the river bank and repeatedly attacks Ugr Pratap. Uday finally plunges the charmed trisul (trident) into Ayesha and dispatches all the spirits to the other worlds. The film ends as Uday and Ayesha return home and find their son nearly drowned but unhurt. Ugr Pratap vows to continue fighting evil in the world.
The four-line poem is as follows: Machli jal ki hai rani, jeevan iska hai pani, haath lagao dar jaayegi, bahar nikalo mar jaayegi (The fish is the queen of the seas, water is her lifeblood, you will scare her if you touch her, you will kill her if you take her out of the water).
The trailer of the film released one month ago and after watching it we can say that the film embraces the premise of a typical Bollywood Horror sporting a possessed woman and a sorcerer (Tantrik) with some witchy faces and special effects. Surprisingly the film has evidently got a quite a low production value especially in terms of art direction, where the sets and rooms are looking very tacky, resembling the feel of low budget films.
The story of the film is about a married couple who have shifted to Jabalpur after a disturbing road accident. While the husband is busy at work the wife begins to feel a supernatural presence and starts behaving very strangely. The rest of the movie is pretty much the same as what is commonly seen in run of the mill Bollywood horrors.
According to news of Indian Express a sequel of the film is in the pipeline even before the film was due for release. Talking about this, director Dey said that it was not at all a conscious decision to end the film in such a way that would lead to a sequel, it just happened and the sequel was inevitable.
Janhvi Kapoor appeared in promotional video for the upcoming Hollywood live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid on Friday. In the short video, the actress herself transformed into Princess Ariel from the film, leaving several fans to speculate how well she would look in the part.
Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India said: "Novelty cannot be expected much in horror, given the nature of the genre. But if the cliched scenes manage to scare you, the job is done. Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai has a formulaic premise too - a woman alone in a haunted house, doors shutting by themselves, mysterious gory deaths, 'I-believe-in-ghosts' maid and an exorcism in the climax. While the film has incorporated all the elements possible, it struggles to maintain tension. The focus diverts from ghost presence and possession to the couple hosting dinner parties for their friends.
"The title is a popular Indian children's nursery rhyme, and perhaps kids under the age of ten would have been the perfect target audience to frighten. Unfortunately, this film is rated A (Adults only), and therefore, falls way short of remotely acceptable levels of spooky entertainment.
Ameet Bhuvan of Desimartini said: "A horror film is done to death, pun intended, in many ways on the big screen. So a lot of making a good horror film is all about reinventing the wheel, innovatively. Or at the basic minimum doing the done thing sincerely. Machchli jal ki rani hai does none of it. In fact, it does nothing. The most horrifying thing about this film is that it is not in the least spooky, and is capable of giving Raagini mms2 a run for its money in mediocrity.
"There is very little that is not predictable in this film, very little that actually scared you. Small horror attempts like these actually harm those rare good small films that have a potential to become our own PA series. Stay clear, stay safe."
Johnson Thomas of Free Press Journal said: "You just don't want to know because you can't be bothered. That is how uninvolving the standard issue story and lacklustre treatment are. The film doesn't even boast of a genuine scare. The contrived, faultily engineered ones are laughable. Even the performances don't have any conviction. Hysterics abound aplenty. The only time you'll be lucky to be genuinely horrified is when you come across the open ending. Just the thought of a sequel to this horror farce can give you the Hives!"
Achhli Jal Ki Rani Hai is an upcoming thriller-horror film directed by Debaloy Dey. This is a sort of comeback for Dey, who made his directorial debut in 1993 with the Salman Khan-Sridevi starrer, Chandra Mukhi. Thereafter, Dey moved onto TV serials only to return with this spooky flick, which has been shot in locations like Panchmarhi and Jabalpur. The director, who has great fascination for the supernatural, talks to us about his film and getting Swara on board. Excerpts...
Q. What is the inspiration behind the film?
A. The film is partly based on a true incident, a story I heard from a friend whose father had a supernatural experience while working in a tea estate. However, I have added a lot of fiction to it. The script has Bollywood elements in it.
Q. What techniques have you adopted in this film?
A. We have worked a lot on the sound and lighting. The scary scenes in the film happen during the day, which is not de rigueur. If you see the film in 7.1-surround sound, you will get a better effect. We shot the film in Panchmarhi, Madhya Pradesh. I have tried to capture the forests in various shots to add to the eerie ambience of Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai.
Unfortunately "Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai" is no longer available to stream on Netflix USA. It may return in the future and you can always ask Netflix to put it back again. For information about how to request films and TV shows please follow this link: How To Ask Netflix To Add Your Favourite Movie or Show
Machli was also famous for being the most photographed tigress. Over the years, she had been the subject of many documentaries, short films, journals, books, and research papers on wildlife. In fact, many books based on Machli and Ranthambore National Park have received a TOFT Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to conservation and the wider Rajasthan economy.
The tigress Machhali has long been under media spotlight and has gained tremendous attention amidst the vast & anges of animal and tiger lovers. There could be many reasons behind her this glory but one and only thing is that has fascinated many tiger lovers is her muscular body. Her agile activities majestic look and her dominance at the whole Ranthambhore Jungle films books & even lifetime awards much to her fame and have raised her name to greater extent.
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