‘A Wedding Story’ review: Mukti Mohan and Vaibhav Tatwawaadi’s film scares, but in bits and pieces

Horror films have had their own era in Bollywood. In the fifties and sixties, horror films like ‘Mahal’, ‘Woh Kaun Thi’ and ‘Kohra’ ruled the roost. Then came the era of Ramsay Brothers’ horror films, followed by Ram Gopal Varma’s thriller-horror and Vikram Bhatt’s ghostly films. These days horror-comedy is in full swing, so it means that horror films have always had an audience and keeping that audience in mind, director Abhinav Pareek has come up with ‘A Wedding Story’.

Story of ‘A Wedding Story’

The story begins with a death in the Bhardwaj family. In this family, the father of Tarun Nain (Lakshvir Saran) dies during Panchak period. According to Vedic astrology, a person who dies during Panchak period is considered very inauspicious. In that case, the soul of the dead person does not get peace. For the peace of the soul and to avoid inauspicious events, the family of the dead person has to perform the ritual of Pran Pratishtha with five dolls, otherwise the family has to go through sudden accidents, but Tarun, who has returned from studies abroad, refuses to perform this ritual calling it superstition and throws away those dolls.

To calm Tarun’s anger, his/her cousin Vikram (Vaibhav Tatwawaadi) brings him/her to the farm house. Unknowingly, they also bring along the dolls with which the Pandit had already performed half of the Pran Pratishtha ritual. After that, a series of ominous events start happening in the Bhardwaj family, which is first felt by Vikram’s fiancée Preeti (Mukti Mohan). The series of horrific deaths in the family wreaks havoc on everything.

Trailer of ‘A Wedding Story’

A Wedding Story Review

Director Abhinav Pareek chose an interesting base like Panchak Kaal to create a backdrop for horror. The stories related to this inauspicious period are well known, but it has been explored for the first time on the cinema screen. Director Abhinav sets the atmosphere of horror in the very first scene. The first half of the film is a bit slow, but the facts related to Panchak Kaal keep surprising the audience. In the second half, the story increases the dose of horror and creates interest, but from the point of view of editing, the lack of coherence in the story is felt.

There is a scary scene in the film, but the next scene does not connect to it. Due to this, many scenes become irrelevant. In such a horror space, the party song interrupts the story. Although the audience enjoys jump scares in many scenes. Despite this, there are many questions in the story, whose answers the audience does not get. Especially the climax of the film seems to have been ended very hastily.

Supratim Bhol’s cinematography on the beautiful location of Dehradun maintains the scary and gloomy atmosphere. Sucheta Bhattacharjee’s music is okay, but Rahi Syed’s background score is in accordance with the horror.

Acting is the strong point of the film. Vaibhav leaves a mark as the fundamentalist Vikram. Mukti gives a wonderful performance as Preeti. Her and Vaibhav’s chemistry blossoms well on screen. The pair looks good on screen. Lakshvir Saran and Minka Chaudhary have done a good job, but the characters have not been developed properly. Akshay Anand is good in the supporting role. However, the child artist has played his/her role very well.

Why watch- If you are fond of horror movies, then you can watch this movie once.