De Monte Colony

There’s this school-mate of mine, who is currently in Gurgaon. During the course of a casual conversation yesterday evening, we suddenly decided to watch the Tamil movie, “De Monte Colony”, playing at a multiplex here. We reached the mall just in time, booked our tickets and just had enough time to gulp down our dinner. Whilst guzzling down mouthfuls of lassi after dinner, I fondly recalled the good times we had together when we were in school and subsequently college. It was common for us to cycle down to Mount Road, catch up with a movie, and have our favourite lassi (in the narrow lane behind Devi complex) before heading home. Reminiscently, I told him things have changed now. He argued that things were still the same except that we now drove cars instead of cycles and were having not-so-tasty food at more plush places! The jury is still out on this topic. But after watching “De Monte Colony”, I can say that Tamil cinema has indeed come a long way from the times I cycled down to Mount Road to catch up with the latest releases!

The movie directed by debutant Ajay Gnanamuthu, will provide you with thrills rarely seen in Tamil horror movies. Post-Chandramukhi, a lot of horror flicks have been made in Tamil. But almost all of them have had a comedy track and a love angle mixed into the scheme of things to keep a wide range of audience happy. Ajay Gnanamuthu, a former assistant of AR Murugadoss, steers clear of this established “masala” formula and comes up with a winner! The screenplay is a tad slow and could have been racier, especially the opening scenes. But once the movie gets into the main plot, a good 20-odd minutes after the start, it keeps you gripped, providing thrills that have never been seen before in Tamil cinema.

The wonderful background score of Keba Jeremiah, a guitarist working for AR Rahman, adds to the effect. Yes, the background score gets a bit shriller in the second half, but purely for the work he has put on in the first half, he deserves a special mention! It would indeed be worthwhile to say that his background score takes the movie to a different level!

Aravind Singh’s camera work too deserves a mention. This former assistant of Santosh Sivan adds to the feel of the movie with his lighting and wonderful angles.

Overall, “De Monte Colony” is worth a watch not only for horror movie aficionados, but also for people who love the “new age” Tamil cinema. It is definitely not for kids and the weak-hearted, though!

P.S: Such was the effect of this movie that when I was woken up by a power cut in the middle of the night yesterday (coincidentally it was exactly 12 in the midnight when I checked the time in my phone!), I had a few scenes from the movie playing up in my mind. It took a few minutes for me to “erase” them out and catch up with my sleep again!