You
have to give credit to these four hard-partying Kolkata club kids. When they
stumble into a Hostel-like hotel,
they have the good sense to get the heck out of there. Unfortunately, it turns
out to be a case of out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire in Q & Nikon’s Ludo (trailer here), which screens
tonight during the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.
Ria
and her BFF Payal are girls who just want to have fun. They have hooked up with
two slicksters who just want to have sex. Ria and Payal are not opposed, at
least not after some drinking and dancing, but finding a motel that is no-tell
enough in socially conservative Kolkata is a tricky proposition. After scrambling
out of the aforementioned suspicious love hotel like Shaggy and Scooby, they
resolve to just sneak into the mall after closing. The air conditioning is the
key selling point.
It
is all good, clean fun for a while, until the four carousers realize they are
not alone in the mall. They are sharing the space with two Grunge-ish evil entities who have one thing on their minds: blood.
Just who are these malevolent beings? Q and Nikon are glad you asked, because
most of the third act is dedicated to their backstory—and it’s a killer. It
involves an ancient, sentient dice game that is profoundly evil, but fatally
seductive.
Q
and Nikon are two filmmakers, but grateful poster designers will never have a
problem laying out their names on a one-sheet. Ludo’s jaded perspective on modern Indian life will come as no
surprise to those familiar with Q’s banned opus Gandu. Nevertheless, even by horror film standards, it is an
unusually dark film, in every sense of the word. It depicts the world as a
predatory place, dating back centuries. While Q & Nikon are short on proactive
recommendations, they seem to take perverse glee in giving the finger to polite
Bengali and Bollywood cinema. There are no sentimental love songs here, but
driving club music is certainly a prominent element of their cocktail.
The
small ensemble, led by Subholina Sen, is sufficient to the task, performing at
a level equal to what you might see in a typical Blumhouse film. Although it
was probably shot on a shoestring, Devika Dave’s design team created some
suitably creepy props. Q & Nikon also fully capitalize on their nocturnal
urban settings.
