 watching Spider-Man No Way Home last night? I wasn't. Very fun. Yeah, on Marvel, Stan Lee would be proud. Yeah. Yeah, you have to have seen the other Spider-Man films, or really appreciate it, which everybody has. So if you've seen any other Spider-Man films, I just, when it was over, I was like, Connet and Marvel just keeps telling great stories, but before it started, there was a trailer for the film, starting Kenneth Brown on a list of Gal Gadot, a bunch of other people that are big, big names. And it's called Death on the Nile. Ali Faizal. His face popped up right there. I totally had forgotten that he was in it. So yeah. Go back to our stupid director, it's Corbin. I am Rick. And you call me, I'm a stupid, do it! Yeah! And you don't know what we're talking about, but End of an Era. Yeah. End of the Second Era, I guess. This is- You'll find out, no. End of the Second Era, yeah. This is- You'll find out a little bit. Faiz two, ending Faiz three, beginning. What happened? What did I do? Sorry, you're for- Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Might need to pull it back here and add what she said. Anyways, but today we're doing a movie review of your little, yes! We watched the word I was saying last night that I pronounced weird when we were walking into the theater. You weren't there, you were behind us. It was me and Alexis and Micah. I don't know, I wasn't there. I think it was a Cresson. Cresson? Did you say Cresson? No, it was, I was in the car, but earlier I was like, it would be weird to just everywhere you go ask somebody, excuse me, and pronounce it this way. Just wherever you are, like if you're out to dinner somewhere and it doesn't matter what the cuisine is and just say, probably me, I was wondering instead of breadsticks, do you happen to have any Cresson? And just pronounce it like that. Anyway, we watched the new Malayalam film, Bousaqalalam. That's right, Bousaqalam. Bousaqalalam. Almost Corbinized. Written and directed by Rahul Sarisban, forgive me for mispronouncing that, but yeah. And starring Shane and Ravathi. We're the stars. Yep, those are our two stars. And then also we've seen him in a couple things. Yeah, we've actually, we've seen all three of the, there's the two main stars. And then the supporting investigating guy, counselor that we've seen all of them in multiple things before, Bangalore Days, Bikamalandji Night, it's a virus, but it's the drama horror mystery is how IMDb categorizes it. It was almost like people described it as Malayalam's horror film. I don't know that I describe it strictly as a horror film. I kind of describe it almost the same as I described their superhero film, a Malayalam film that has some horror. Yeah, we'll get into that anyways. Yeah, but yeah, it's a new film. So we'll go a little non-spoiler. Non-spoiler, because that's what we do. And then we'll get into spoiler. We saw it on, it's on Sony Live, which is not available here, but we got it through the app Sling and you have to, there's a whole thing. But yeah, you can, if you're here in the United States, you can get it through Sling and you have to like get a subscription to Sony L.A.V. through Sling. It's a whole thing. Which is okay. I mean, it's not expensive and it's, yeah, but yeah. So we'll go over a little non-spoiler and then we'll get into spoilers. Yeah, so Ricky, you're gonna show a non-spoiler thought. Non-spoiler thought paragraph. With a score and a cinematography and acting and directing and above all, story. As good as anything created by my favorite master of the horror genre like Flanagan, Bootha Column is, for me, one of the best horror films we've seen coming out of India and I thankfully, it seems to have set itself up nicely to be more than just a one and done experience, but maybe a full blown franchise and that is not spoiling anything. Oh, we're going to hell. Yeah, there's, we'll talk about this in the spoilers but the way that this film concludes, they left it open for the prospect and I hope it is. We'll talk a lot about why I liked it a lot. Okay, yeah. I really enjoyed it, but would you describe it as a full-fledged horror? That's what I wanted to get into. I would. But that's why I compare it to Flanagan because Flanagan is not full-fledged horror. This is more like a psychological and it's also a deeper meaning behind, obviously, a lot of the story and stuff like that. But so, yeah, overall, really, really enjoyed this film. I think it's definitely worth a watch for everyone. Even if you don't like horror, I think you'll be fine. I honestly think you'll be fine. If you, this is a great movie, I think, for somebody who's not a fan of the horror genre or maybe you're like me where I have grown to love the genre because I've been introduced to artists like Mike Flanagan, as well as if you haven't seen Jordan Peele's stuff of us and Get Out. The thing that I've detested about horror in the past is just it doesn't take that much to scare people so I felt it wasn't creatively challenging and I don't like Flanagan. I haven't seen a film of his. He has a film called Weegee Board. I've had personal experiences with that. I don't want to go into that. So anything that glorifies the demonic, it can include the demonic, but the glorification of the demonic and things of that nature I don't like. This is a great entry point because like a Flanagan film, this is more a story about a family and two people and the good acting and storytelling that's going on in the interest you have and you're waiting very often for the proverbial scare to drop and it just doesn't happen, but you know it's coming and even when it does come, it's just so, so well done. I'm really pleased to support this movie. I agree, this is definitely one of, it's maleelums, you know how we love maleelum cinema and the fact that they always, I think, appreciate story and acting over everything. Over everything. Not always, obviously. But it seems like that's something that is very in that whole industry. That is what drives that industry. And story, kids, while I was watching Spider-Man, I was sitting and watching the very last, I knew we were coming down to the last like 15, 20 minutes and it just was affirming in my heart. It was like, thank you, thank you, Marvel, for not just letting the juggernaut of this franchise be what you're riding on, but you guys took the time to write a good story and it's story that propels always, has been, always will. It's always story that is the paramount best part about great movies. Yeah. But yeah, from the acting to the sound mixing, sound mixing was fantastic. Just overall soundscape of the entire film, I thought, blended a lot to the core feel of it, even if there wasn't like a lot of jump scares. I thought that was fantastic. And so, this is basically your non-spoilers. Go see this film, I think you're gonna enjoy it. There's just a few little things that I personally didn't enjoy, like a part of it. Not for kids. No, I mean, it's all for kids. Teenagers would be fine. But little ones, first of all, I don't understand the story and it's gonna scare them. It's gonna scare them. So go support this film, please. It's really good. Please. Everybody did really well. So if you have watched it, please stay. Spoiler time. Go watch it and then come back and we're gonna spoil some stuff. So yeah, the, I don't know what to talk about for it, but let's talk about the acting. Yeah. Both of them. Yep. I mean, everybody did well, but both of them. And he really impressed, because obviously in Kumbala Jenae, everybody was so good, but we really rigged about obviously Fafa and Subhan. Yeah. We did, those were the ones. And we said he was solid. But he really showed me that he's a really good actor. Really good actor. And it's a very different role. There was a lot going on with this guy and his mental space during this entire film. And he kind of just, he wasn't really show it. You could tell what was going on in his brain. He really put himself, because this guy is, and that goes to the overall story, this is a story about mental illness a lot. Yeah, on the border between. The border between is what you're going, everything. This deals with the problems of alcoholism, sleep deprivation, familial challenges, generational problems. It's complex. But you saw all that going on in his face and behind his eyes. And he did so well. He was like, even in the part where like, he was just dancing like crazy. I told him he did a really good job at that point. Cause that could have been like stupid and like, and dumb. And I thought he pulled it off really, really well. The last time I saw a dance that impacted me that much was GGBV. Yeah, you betcha. GGBV. You betcha. Yeah, he did so well. Fantastic. They were so, so good together. Yeah. Yeah, he showed that he is a incredibly strong actor. Really looking forward to more of what he's gonna do because this role, both of these roles require you for it to be as good as it is. Require actors of really deep substance. Yeah. Really deep substance. And she seemed like she's a vet. And we've always seen her before, but she's so good. But like if, I was thinking like, if this was made like to, to comparable actors in Hollywood, and maybe like somebody like an Andrew Garfield and like Dame Judy Dencher. That's exactly who I would think of. Some like, and it's that quality of acting. Somebody of that, or Maggie Smith. Yep. Somebody of that caliber, who's an amazing legendary actor and who can pull it off. It would be those type of people. You would do that. What she gave me. A hundred percent. She gave me Dame Judy Dencher. Yep. She even gave like, Andrew Garfield's very comparison. Yeah. She gave me all those like, she's so good. She brought a lot to this role. And as strong as he was, I think she was even stronger. Even by a, by a, in the same way a Judy Dench would be about a shot ahead of an Andrew Garfield. As good as Andrew Garfield was. There's just that extra level of experience in life and nuance that she conveys that really evidence is a, this is, if you had the script and you had the story and you're making this film and you were doing it here in the States, you would say to yourself, we need to, it's not box office. It's not looking for the box office drop per se. That'll be great if we get that cause you need to make money. But in order for this movie to be believable, for people to stay caring and for them to really work this, it's why Mike Flanagan uses the same actors over and over again. Cause he knows they can carry the weight of what he wants to do. Yeah. This requires actors of substance and they both were fantastic. Yeah. Absolutely. And they had a really good gift and like it goes along to the story but of their whole complex relationship and the dialogue they had between each other and the past relationships and all that. And that goes to the overall story of it. And it was... The story is so good. It's kind of a slow moving story cause especially if you're expecting horror right off the bat. Again, that's why it's like Mike Flanagan's like that. It's all about you're building these relationships and then up to the crescendo of the end, right? And there's a couple in between parts that you'll get some suspense and scare and what you're kind of looking for. But most of it's not that. It's more psychological. What's going on in these two minds and the relationships of people. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know if you got this, like what do you think the overall message of? Like what would... I was gonna put it in my paragraph but then it would have been more of an essay. So I really felt this was, again, like Mike Flanagan. So if you haven't watched Mike Flanagan I highly, highly, highly recommend you watch both his films and his series but most especially in the series realm, Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor and his newest one Midnight Mass. Because what he does is the horror genre happens to be in the same way that Guillermo uses the genre that he does of specifically telling the stories of monsters or people dealing with the monstrous. He doesn't do it because that's something he gets a kick out of doing and knows it'll draw an audience. It's because he loves that and it's the best way he knows to tell the story. Flanagan does that with horror. His bigger issue isn't the genre. He just finds that genre and I agree to be the best genre to tell his stories because Haunting of Hill House is really about a haunted family. Haunting of Bly Manor is about a haunted love story but it's set in the horror genre. You get, there's some serious jump scares. So I think this had the complexity of being both a story of a haunted family with their own ghosts and skeletons in the closet and families with their own ghosts and skeletons in the closets set within the context of an actual haunted house. Yeah, I thought the house was more metaphor for people's baggage. Absolutely is. And mental. The memories we leave in the homes. Yeah, it was more representative than literal. And it was, yeah. 100%. It was kind of a, really a film about mental illness. Yeah, I agree. And how that needs to be kind of dealt with and taken seriously and treated and kind of the demons and the scary situations that these people actually go through that's real to them. Yes. But I thought it was a really good kind of without making it obvious. This is a metaphor. Right. I left it open for, what do you think this was about? Somebody could easily walk away from this and think it's just a haunted house story and that would be great. And I bet that Rahul would be cool with that. And I think he also would appreciate, and this is the same with Mike Flanagan. He'd appreciate people who recognize the deeper understanding of what he's trying to convey where he's using this as a template for a metaphor to show you that these are the kinds of things that haunt people. These are the kinds of things that possess their minds. And that's what I love about Flanagan. That's what I love about Jordan Peele. And I checked, I think this is what, his second or third film? Yeah. It was so exciting. And the ending lends itself toward, as I was watching it end, I went, please, please, I hope you had this in mind. Let's just keep making films about this house or houses like it. Where all you tell us are stories of new people that move in and they're dealing with stories of their own and their own ghosts and their own hauntings that they've got. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I love the fact that it just kind of ended and it kind of just ended on the house. The empty room. There's no sound. There was no ghost. There was no nothing. It was just a room and it blacked. And if you watch it, I'm assuming you've all watched this. Should have said this probably at the front end. Obviously. You shouldn't be here if you haven't watched it. Yeah, you shouldn't be here. I'm so glad, again, like most films, you either need to watch them with full blown, great sound or put on the AirPods because I had my AirPods on watching again while I was watching here with this around. Yeah, you gotta do one or the other because the sound work on this, and yes, there was some dubbing. I've gotten used to it. One of my favorite moments was him getting scared and all you hear is his heartbeat racing. Yeah, that was great. Because it was way underneath the sound scope. You had to listen carefully. The sound that was the scratching on the wall, you heard it traveling in the wall. So the sound design on this is spectacular. One of the best, most entertaining parts of this movie is the sound design. The sound department of, I wanna give them a shout. Yes, absolutely. This is such a... Kishan Mohan, Vignesh, Radhika Rishnan, and Rahul Siam, all in their team. Yes, in their whole team because the sound was a character in itself and it lended itself to the very kind of absolutely scary vibe of the film. And the score. Yeah. I just, the moment the movie started, that was the first thing I put down on my notes was I am instantly loving the score and I looked up a Gopi Sundar. And not surprising, Gopi Sundar has a long resume of work and wouldn't surprise me. I'd really love to know how much Rahul is a lover of Flanagan because a lot of the score was reminiscent of there's these brothers that Flanagan uses for a lot of the scoring of his stuff. This was very similar to, it has what you expect in a horror film with the scary stuff, but then there's also these recurring themes that have a haunting nature to it that I think lend to that metaphor of this is more than just a ghost story, guys. This is about people being haunted. Yeah, yeah. And that scary hand at the end was cool though. It was like a really good, I don't know if they just did make up on something. They almost looked like Gollum's hand a little bit. It did. I didn't know if that was grandma or if it was just the entity of that at home. Yeah, I didn't know either, but I loved it. Me too. I thought it was really, really cool. I also love my, some of the scariest visuals ever caught on film have very little going on. And he did it, man. He just did it so often. Like when he comes out of the room, and this was many times, he comes out of the room and mom just goes like this. Yeah. And then you see the man sitting on the couch. Yeah. And then they go back to them and then the next time you see them, the man has stood. And then I don't know where a little girl goes walking by. I love scares like that. And the fact that you never, and obviously because that's the whole theme of it, it's not, they're not real. Right. Just they're in these people's minds, but the fact that they're all shadows in the distance, outside of that, at the end, when it was a hand, maybe it was a last grasp effort or something, that's the whole thing that can be debated. So the thing I didn't enjoy was the song, the one song. We didn't need it. I didn't think it was necessary. Yeah, we didn't need it. I was like, maybe this is for promotion. And that's fine if you have to do a song for promotion for to get the very well could be production company distribution said. It just felt it didn't fit. It was a nice song. It's not, it wasn't pretty. It's just, I was like, this just doesn't fit in this film to me. I agree 100%. So that's my one gripe with the film, is that? Yeah. And it's easily just, it's like, okay, forget it. It's like a forgettable page in a book. You still love the Harry Potter book, but maybe you forgot page 27. Yeah. But other than that, I thought that all the acting was great. The direction was phenomenal. The cinematographer and some of the shots that they did were excellent. Absolutely beautiful. Excellent. Excellent. The use of shadow and so yeah. And I was supporting actors did really well. I was so happy when we reached, because we weren't getting the scares and it didn't bother me because the story and the acting of our two mains were so solid. I was enjoying watching every minute of them working that when we got to what I knew was the climax and we were hitting that peak, each of the scare moments that were being done were so good. I was just really happy. Yeah. I was like, oh, this has been everything I was hoping it would be. I'd have to go back and think, but it might be the best horror we've seen in Indians. It's in a pretty darn, it's right up there. I mean, we've seen some good ones, but none have been like crazy, crazy scary. This is probably the scariest, right? Well, at least one of the best achievements in the discipline. Yeah, like, so the ones that come to mind immediately, and I forget some of the names because they're not native language, so it's easy to lose that, but the two that come to mind, there's three that come to mind of my favorites that we've seen that were scary. And the scariest of them till this one for me would have been the one with the husband and wife in the cornfield. Yeah, the Marathi one. The Marathi one. That one I felt was one of the best we've seen in a long time, but if someone right today were to say what's the best horror film that you've seen come out of India, I would say, like as much as we love Stree and the cinematography, nothing touches the cinematography of the other one, be buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh, buh buh, buh buh. Yeah, buh buh was just romance on celluloid. It's so gorgeous. I think overall, because this is so Jordan Peele, so my plan again, this is probably my favorite horror film in India. Yeah, and it's an exciting stepping stone, I feel, for the genre. Agreed. Especially, I don't know how many of them have been made in Malayalam in how prevalent, but I know in Indian cinema in general, it's not a category that has been delved into, and so I'm hoping they're starting to, just like they're dipping a lot of money into OTT platforms. Yeah. And the fact that this might not have done well as well on theatrical, the fact that it can just be brought out on OTT platforms is great. Yeah, the only drawback, at least here in the States, is the fact that it's on an OTT platform that isn't as accessible as others, so I'm hoping one of two things happens. I hope that, first of all, everybody in India shares it on the platforms that are somewhere accessible, and then I hope it would get a larger distribution because of its popularity on another more common platform here, because it's worthy, and it should pave the way for more of this, especially that ending. I hope we get to see more thematic things, not just this, but I hope Rahul does a lot more in the genre because it's really good. Yeah, let us know what you thought about this film and what should be the next Malayalam slash horror film that we watch down below.