Ludo

Ludo

A Bengali-language horror seemed to have an interesting premise so I gave it a shot. Big mistake. This is an incompetent mess. A painfully overlong first act focuses on four foul-mouthed, unlikable teens partying and driving all over the subcontinent on mopeds looking for a place to hook up. The segment seems to have been written with an immature teenage boy's perception of how casual dating works. Anyway, the group finally settles on hiding in the mall overnight, where things go from dumb to stupid with the arrival of decrepit ghouls and a supernatural board game. There are a couple effects scenes that seem to have consumed the entire budget. Otherwise it's like something junior highschoolers shot and edited on a camcorder.

Total waste of time. Dont watch even if you are throughly bored.

Like watching 2 separate movies! The 1st some sort of low budget hand cam slice of life from India, which was fairly interesting, but the characters were hollow and pointless. The 2nd was extremely interesting, a story about a game, similar to the game box in Hellraiser, which begs you to solve it, and if you don't, your body is forfeit, if you do your soul is. The board, like the box mesmerizes you, and you must play. If the 2nd half was more developed and a movie on its own, it would be a GOOD movie, but the first half, and the end, which happens in LITERAL FLASHES, and up close shots of faces, so you can't tell which of the 3 women you're looking at, what time you're looking at, it RUINS the end, because you DON'T know what happened!!! BOO!!! I even went back and watched it in slow mo, and if what I THINK happened happened, it would make no sense, because it would mean things in the past would make things in the future different.... Watch if you dare, because it will only leave you confused.

This started off so well with an interesting premise. This film was confused and lost it's way. Some good FX and a reasonable cast was let down by a poor story.

I am a huge fan of Q. Huge is an understatement but Ludo did not meet even 20% of my expectation. When I found Ludo was on Netflix I was elated and I spent my Thanksgiving afternoon glued to the screen. I have never felt so disappointed. Rii is as usual amazing but whoever did her voice for the movie ( I assume it was meant to be a Sakchunni - Bengali married woman's spirit) sounded ridiculous, raspy and horrendous. The four main characters are shallow and by shallow I mean not an ounce of depth. I grew up in Kolkata and I can vouch for the fact that we don't use so much of swear words in our daily vocabulary. I Know impressionable men and women feel that using swear words would be cool but it was a bit of an overkill. Tilottama Shome as the Shaman could have been explored much much more. I was left with a palate of bile after the movie. It could have been so so much better had some of the background story been omitted and stress put on the present day scenario of the Shaman's existence. Over all, I think it is a mess.

A complete waste of my time movie due to bad acting, a very all over the place convoluted plot & narrative, horrible direction, abysmal screenplay, below average cinematography, atrocious editing & pacing, non-existent character development, and a bland at best score. The only redeemable quality of this movie is the gore, but unfortunately it can't save the movie from being so extremely incoherent & a slob to get through. It also does admittedly have a few interesting ideas, maybe if the writing and direction weren't so terrible, these ideas could really shine in a much better movie. Stay the hell away from this movie and just stick with say the Jumanji movies.

I mean WTF!!!??? I thought That I had bad movies but This is the worst!!!

I'm a bit surprised that there are only negative reviews here, because I genuinely enjoyed this off-beat little film. It's certainly no masterpiece, and the storyline is a little thin. However, in my opinion it was enjoyable anyway. The main characters are charming, silly students trying to stretch their legs and break some rules only to encounter something extremely strange going on at the mall. I guess what I found most enjoyable was the looming, disorienting atmosphere and some extremely well-done makeup/FX that made for some genuinely beautiful, creepy imagery. The storyline kind of jumps all over the place, which is a bit jarring, but I didn't mind. To me the more confusing aspects would've been fine had it not been so long. Most Indian films tend to be on the long side--- this one didn't need that. The pacing is a bit strange, but there's quite a few humorous moments balanced nicely with some tense, surreal bits. Perhaps I liked this more than other people did because I didn't go into it expecting a scary horror movie (it was a random pick). I had only the most vague description of the film, and at first I expected it was going to be some goofy teen movie. It isn't really a "horror" film, it veers more into a surreal, kind of artsy zone, which is honestly pretty unexpected the way it starts off. This would probably annoy a lot of people (especially if you were hoping for some legit horror), but I thought the concept was fun. Overall, the fragmented narrative and sometimes awkward pacing didn't ruin the concept for me, and it's still far better than most average Hollywood horror films. Give it a chance, especially if you like artsy films and/or are on mushrooms.

I am fan of the foreign horror genre, so needless to say i was excited to view this film. Foreign horror films often contain more in depth mythos and psychological scares than the mainstream films. The idea of this film was very interesting yet failed to deliver. The pacing was too slow and scattered and despite the typical gore, Ludo failed to grip me. The scenes combined with the soundtrack felt solely for shock value ( a la Martyrs sans story line). The first act was, albeit too long, supposed to flesh out the characters. Which it did. It gave the viewer a sense of the environment and what is culturally accepted and not. Then, it switched from being a 'slow-burn'into a music video that bombards your ears with industrial type beats and seizure inducing lights. From here you are magically whisked away to a non-nonsensical time shifting quick explanation of the cursed game complete with gore and not much else. To say more is really irrelevant. Many will disagree, but if you are curious in viewing this, it really wouldn't hurt skipping some scenes and just skimming through the rest to arrive at a flat ending.