Two female university students, along with a number of random people, are given complimentary tickets to a mysterious movie screening, where they soon find themselves trapped in the theatre with a horde of ravenous demons.
This is the Wikipedia plot for Demons, a 1985 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Lamberto Bava.
You might wonder why you have spent precious few seconds reading the plot summary of a fairly obscure Italian film. But I too felt the horror the university students and their fellow audience must have gone through in that film... but after watching Kalyaan’s 80s Buildup instead. In fact, I will stick my neck out to say that mine’s a greater tragedy because, a) the people in the film die or turn into demons whereas, I, have to live with the memory of the film for the rest of my life and b) The characters in the film got complimentary tickets and I brought this upon myself, spending my own money.
80s Buildup (Tamil)
Because of Santhanam’s previous works, we don’t go into his films expecting highbrow art. Usually, we witness a parade of zingers within a threadbare plot. And, some of the lines — though they aren’t classified as classical comedy — hit their mark, evoking laughter. His delivery makes them work, somehow. If laughter is a medicine, you get at least a small dose of it in his films. But with 80s Buildup, you get none; you might instead need actual medicine for a headache or other ailments.
Sample some of the “comedy” (reader discretion is advised)
“Naanga museum lendhu varom”
“Yennadhu? Music lendhu vareengla?”
(“We are coming from a museum”
“What? You are coming from music?”)
***
“Idhu 24 Carat vairam ya.”
“Idhu carrot ah, illa vairam ah?”
(“This is a 24 Carat diamond.”
“Is this carrot or a diamond?”)
***
Bear with me, this is the last one.
“Ivara post-mortem panna, kaapatheerlaam”
“Post office la epdi ya kaapathuva?”
(“We can save him if w–” ... I’ll stop translating.)
Almost the entire film has lines like these.
There is a plot. Actually two. One is about Santhanam’s character challenging his sister that he will win the heart of a girl he saw for the first time at his grandfather’s funeral. The second one is about three conmen trying to acquire the map of a hidden treasure at the same funeral. When you think about it, they have the potential to be developed into a decent dark comedy caper. But the writing consists of cliched situations and crass humour (like a middle-aged man leching at another man dressed like a woman, and another middle-aged man neighing like a horse seeing another man’s full-figured wife.)
The film’s world and the characters are absurd. But the absurdity doesn’t aid the humour; it seems to serve no purpose. It’s just arbitrary. For instance, the film is set in the early ‘80s and Santhanam’s character is a Kamal Haasan fan. But apart from sprinkling a few random pop-culture references — like Sakalakala Vallavan, Silk Smitha, and Rajinikanth’s Murattu Kaalai — and dressing a few characters in vintage costumes, we don’t get the relation of the period to the story.
The film has a battalion of actors who do comic roles (apart from Santhanam) for bread and butter like Sundarrajan, Mayilsamy, Munishkanth, Mansoor Ali Khan, Rajendran, and Santhanam’s Lollu Sabha colleagues like Swaminathan, Seshu, and others. It’s okay if none of them make you laugh but, on many occasions, they make you cringe.
I am not making this up, but I also heard an empathetic soul amidst the audience say, “Feel bad for the ones who are going to review this film.”
I shed a tear.
‘80s Buildup is currently running in theatres
