‘Fly high with fear’
Balloon is a 2017 Indian Tamil supernatural horror feature film written and directed by Sinish. The film stars Jai, Anjali (Lisaa) and Janani Iyer in the leading roles. Featuring music composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja.
Plot:
Filmmaker Jeeva (Jai) heads to a haunted house in Ooty where strange events start unfolding around him. The answer to which may lie in his past…
Reviews:
“A black cat, an innocent kid, a haunted house, an exorcist, a conjurous clown, suspicious house maid, a ghost capturing camera and so on […] Despite having these many horror elements coalesced in a screenplay, it has turned out to be a clumsy show in the end.” The Judgemental Journalist
“The only redeeming feature in the film’s long runtime of close to 150 minutes is a bright performance by Anjali, who as a young wife plays wonderfully to the camera, portraying shock and fright with conviction. Otherwise, Balloon ends up as yet another attempt to infuse humor into some of the most scary sequences, reducing them to downright silliness.” Gautaman Bhaskaran, News 18
“Director Sinish has borrowed every single cliche that horror movies have to offer – a haunted doll, a troubled child, a dilapidated building, exorcism, an innocent wife and more. In fact, the hero even mentions this oddity in the film, making you wonder halfway through if you are watching some kind of a spoof. But no such luck.” Priyanka Thirumurthy, The News Minute
“A haunted house, a few murders, a possessed child, a possessed adult, a tragic backstory, revenge, and finally, an exorcism. The only relief in the starkly mundane proceedings comes by way of Yogi Babu who relentlessly tries one quip after another. Some work, some don’t, but the effort is quite moving, nevertheless.” Sinndhuja Ramprasad Silverscreen
“Balloon works mainly because it has some solid scares (most of which are jump scares or variations of it), a lot of zingy one-liners (courtesy Yogi Babu, who is hilarious here) and a bit of inventiveness (especially in the second half, when the ghost toys with the villains). The filmmaking is also solid…” M Suganth, Times of India
Cast and characters:
- Jai … Jeeva
- Anjali … Jacqueline – Lisaa
- Janani Iyer
- Chandini Tamilarasan
- Yogi Babu – Lisaa
- Karthik Yogi
- Raj Tarun
Filming:
Production on Balloon began in June 2016, and it was released on 28 December 2017.
