Horror is a genre that has been pretty underutilised and has been very less explored in India. In the last few years, there’ve been some nice cinematic and digital attempts, but hardly anything is served that can be considered up to the mark of today’s standards.
By Chetan Mehrishi
Sujoy Ghosh has a very good track record with suspense thrillers, so when he came up with Typewriter for Netflix, I naturally had high expectations along with many others. Writers Sujoy Ghosh & Suresh Nair have clearly used the Stranger Things template to create a story on Indian backdrop as the similarities between both Netflix’s web series are uncanny. Now as an audience one doesn’t take the similarities very kindly because we have already seen Stranger Things and also because Typewriter in no way comes close to the impact the former had on the audience. Wanna know more? Check out our review for Netflix’s Typewriter.
The Story
Typewriter is a story of Jenny (Palomi Ghosh) whose grandfather Madhav Matthew (Kanwaljeet) is a popular ghost story-writer but doesn’t believe in the ghosts himself until he sees her ghost in the room. Time takes a leap and Jenny is back to her old home, Bardez Villa, with her family. Now Bardez Villa has a history of spooky incidents and Jenny has no clue about it. History starts repeating itself as there are deaths one after another. Keeping eyes on everything are 4 kids Sam (Aarna Sharma), Nick (Aaryansh Malviya), Bunty (Palash Kamble), Satyajit(Mikhail Gandhi), a dog who have made a ghost club together and a cop Ravi Anand (Purab Kohli), who try to solve the mysterious deaths and paranormal activities happening in and around the dreaded property.
The Good
The performances of the actors are the biggest USP of this web series. Purab Kohli has been pitched as the protagonist of the series and he is very good in his role. The kids, especially Sam played by Aarna Sharma, have shined throughout and have been the show-stealers. Palomi Ghosh as Jenny is very good and her character has an intriguing value to it. Jisshu Sengupta as Amit Roy is the man of the series.
He does a terrific job and proves that he is an actor of great talent. Sujoy Ghosh has given a good direction to the web series. He utilises all the art resources extremely well and creates an environment that makes you uncomfortable and feels scared for sure.
The Bad
What disappointed me the most about the series is its half baked final episode which seems inconsistent with the rest of the show. Also, without sharing spoilers, I’d like to mention that the writers have very comfortably and unconvincingly saved one of their main characters from being killed by the ghost. The best thing the makers have done here is to keep the series short. They haven’t stretched it unnecessarily but have kept the room for Season 2
All In All
Things start on a very promising note and you expect this one to be great binge-watch material. As the web-series progresses it really keeps you hooked because the characters and scenes have been written in a very interesting way. At several points, it really scares you. The fact that the ghost in question here can roam around and kill anyone in daylight too is something never seen before and keeps you interested. The back story of the ghost is a masterstroke and adds a new dimension to the overall value of the series. However, where it disappoints is the half-hearted and underwhelming finale. I’m going with 2.5 out of 5 stars for Typewriter. Watch it if you really want to or have nothing special planned for the weekend.
